


Knocking on Your Heart

by nutmegalomania



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Blow Jobs, Daddy Kink, Drama & Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, High School, Oral Sex, Reader-Insert, Romance, Smut, Teenage Drama, Ushijima Wakatoshi/Reader - Freeform, Vaginal Sex, haikyuu au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:14:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24283450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutmegalomania/pseuds/nutmegalomania
Summary: Ushijima Wakatoshi had always been misunderstood as the loner bad boy who hates everyone. With his tall stature, face stuck in a constant scowl, and deathly quiet demeanor, the other students stayed clear of him, leaving him to be even more alone than he already was. You'd always found him interesting and wondered why he spent his time alone rather than talking to others. After your homeroom teacher asked you, the class president, to help him open up to the other students to make them more comfortable in his presence, you seized the perfect opportunity to learn more about him and satisfy your curiosity about him. What you didn't know was what this small chance would do to you and your life.
Relationships: Ushijima Wakatoshi x Reader
Comments: 9
Kudos: 209





	1. the start of something new

A boy sat at his desk, arms laying on the surface as his head rested on top. The desks within his close vicinity stuck as close as possible to the others to stay as far away from his as possible, which left you with a clear view of the top of his olive-brown hair. Sunlight poured in from the window and caressed his sleeping face. As the light emphasized his thick, long eyelashes, you couldn’t help but think he looked peaceful sleeping there, contrary to the rumors you had heard being whispered about him.

It was hard to imagine this boy would beat anyone up who annoyed him or work for the mafia. While your eyes remained trained on his sleeping form, the bell rang to signal the next class, chemistry. Your class had to move to another room, and the other students rushed to leave to save themselves from being forced to wake the sleeping boy. Before you could even blink, most of the class abandoned the room.

“You better hurry up yourself, Y/N-chan, or you’ll get locked out!” your friend, Tendou Satori, said as he stood at the door with his head tilted to look back at you. His eyes squinted as he spotted the still-sleeping boy at his desk. “You should probably wake him or the teacher won’t be very happy.” He waved at you over his shoulder before he stepped into the hall and walked to the chemistry lab. “Toodles!” 

With that, you were left all alone with the boy at his desk. You didn’t want to wake him from his peaceful slumber, but at the same time, the teacher would get mad at you if you let him sleep here. You couldn’t let the teachers down who put their trust in you for helping out the students. Your hands clutched your head as you squatted on the floor and messed up your hair. Wake him or let him sleep… The decision was weighing on your mind as you crouched on the ground in front of his desk. 

A soft groan came from his desk and made you jump. Your eyes pulled up from the floor to the top of his desk to see his face turned towards you and bathed in the golden glow of sunlight, the slope of his nose and the sharpness of his jaw prominent. It wasn’t every day one got to get a close look at him like this, and you took the chance to duck walk closer to his desk. Though you didn’t talk to him, something about him kept you curious. He was a good looking boy, but he never talked to anyone or had any friends with those in the class. You couldn’t help but think he looked lonely with all the desks nearby cleared from him, leaving him to sit alone next to the window. 

He looked like a kid as he slept, and a fond smile spread across your face as you watched his body move up and down with each deep breath he took. Without thinking, you brought your hand out to brush a strand of hair out of his eyes to get a better look at you. You froze as he groaned and pulled away from your touch. Your heart pounded as you waited in silence for what he would do.

His eyes fluttered open, and you came eye to eye with olive eyes. As he blinked at you, you pulled away and stood up to hide your now-red face. You dusted your skirt off and cleared your throat while he straightened up and stretched.

“The bell rang. The rest of the class already moved to the chemistry room, so let’s catch up to them.” You gave him a smile, and he pushed himself out of his desk without a word. Your eyes trailed after him as he trudged to the door. He paused at the threshold and peered back at you. 

“Are you coming, pres?” he asked, and you jumped at the raspiness in his voice that sent shivers rushing down your spine. 

“Y-yes! We better hurry, or we’ll be marked late.” 

He hummed, and you rushed to catch up to him. As he walked down the hall, you struggled to keep up with his long legs. With his attention focused on the end of the hall, you took the chance to scan him from head to toe. You had known he was tall, but standing next to him put it into perspective. He was at least a head taller than you, and his broad shoulders made your petite body even smaller in comparison. While you walked, you saw him veer of to the side a few times before he’d shake his head and correct himself. 

“I’m sorry for waking you up,” you said as you walked near him in the hallway, realizing he was staggering from sleepiness.

He yawned and covered his mouth with his hand. “Don’t worry about it. We have class, so it was only natural.”

You wanted to say more to him, but words failed to form in your mind, and you pursed your lips until you reached the chemistry lab with him. He opened the door with a loud thud, which you knew was from his tiredness, and the other students jumped at the sound. They were setting up beakers and flasks for an experiment, and a few almost dropped them from the scare they received thanks to the boy.

“Ushijima-san, could you try to arrive on time and not slam the door open when you do arrive? We’re handling glass and chemicals in here, you know,” the chemistry told him, and he scratched his head as his eyes drooped.

“Sorry,” was all he said, and the teacher rolled their eyes before they focused on 

“Sato Y/N, since you and Ushijima Wakatashi were both later to my class than the others, you can be partners and clean up after everyone is finished. No complaints!” 

You bowed to the chemistry teacher while Ushijima grunted in acknowledgement. Together you walked to the back of the room, the other students avoiding Ushijima as much as possible. Beakers and flasks sat on the counter top, different colored liquids filling each one. An object prodded at your shoulder, and you turned to see Ushijima holding a pair of goggles out for you. You thanked him in a quiet voice as you took them from his and put them on after tying your hair back.

Once every student was ready, the chemistry teacher explained the lab for today. The teacher always said the same thing, so you focused on Ushijima instead. Even with the goggles on, you could see how much he wanted to sleep as opposed to working on a lab. When the teacher finished talking, you tapped his shoulder to grab his attention and help him out. He followed your instructions without complaints or mistakes, and the lab went smoother than you could have hoped for.

Soon, the bell rang for the end of the school day, and the class ran out after the teacher gave them a few words. Ushijima went to grab the brooms from the closet while you cleaned the glass tools off the counters. While you worked, Satori popped up in front of you, a creepy smile on his pale face. 

“Poor Y/N-chan is stuck cleaning the classroom with Ushijima-kun! This is why you don’t be late.” He tsked and shook a finger at you, a hand on his hip. His eyes flitted to Ushijima’s figure busy in the closet, and he leaned in close to you. “You two weren’t doing anything…  _ inappropriate _ , were you?” He leaned back, and he wiggled his fiery eyebrows at you.

“S-shut up, Satori-chan! It-it wasn’t like that,” you said as you turned away from his prying eyes, face flushed as thoughts ran through your mind of what he could be thinking you and Ushijima did.

Satori hummed and rubbed his chin as he tilted his head back and peered down at you. “So you say, yet you stutter! Suspicious, isn’t it?”

You opened your mouth to retort back, but the deep voice of Ushijima interrupted you and sent your heart racing from the smoothness of it.

“If you aren’t here to do anything, would you please leave so that we can clean without interruptions?” he said, and Satori held in a snicker.

“So Ushijima-kun  _ does _ know how to speak!” An expressionless face stared at him, and he held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. I’ll leave you two alone.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, stepped towards the door, and swiveled to look at you.  _ Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do _ , he mouthed, and your face burned at the implication of that statement. He disappeared before you could chase him off, and you were left alone with Ushijima. The room felt hot, and you jumped when you saw Ushijima in front of you. 

He held a broom out for you, and you took it from his hand, scared of brushing against him for fear of what it would do to your nerves. You told him you’d sweep from the back of the room, and he nodded before he set off to work. You both worked in silence, and you had almost finished until the overhead speakers stopped you. 

“Sato Y/N to the faculty office now. Sato Y/N to the faculty office now,” the speakers droned, and you stopped sweeping and sighed, wondering what they wanted. 

You ran a hand through your hair and apologized to Ushijima, handing him your broom with a regretful look on your face. He nodded and told you he’d finish cleaning up, but you still were hesitant to leave him. His hands settled on your shoulders from behind as he pushed you towards the door. As he pushed you out of the classroom, he assured you he’d finish it up, so you should go see what you were needed for. Again, you apologized to him before thanking him for being understanding and walking towards the faculty office. 

“Pardon the intrusion,” you said as you opened the faculty office door. Your homeroom teacher looked up from his computer and motioned for you to come to him. You bowed to the other teachers and stepped towards him, hands clasped in front of your skirt. He swiveled in his chair to look at you, legs crossed and eyes filled with boredom and a hint of annoyance. “You needed to see me?” you ask.

“You know, Sato-san,” your homeroom teacher said to you as he drummed his fingers across his desk. “You’re the class president, so it’s your job to make sure all the students are getting along and performing their best. I’ve been a little lax on making sure everyone’s all hunky dory, but I can tell that won’t slide anymore. Ushijima-san has clearly been making everyone uncomfortable with his presence.” He paused for a second, and you sucked in a breath.

“I don’t believe I understand what you mean, sir,” you said, and he sighed in exasperation, hands rubbing his temples.

He leaned forward in his office chair and pointed a finger at you. “It means I want  _ you _ to help fix his attitude so that there isn’t so much tension in the classroom. God, I can’t even stand being in the classroom while he’s in it because of how thick the air is with fear of him. And he is almost always sleeping or looking out the window. I don’t care how long it takes, but it’s been a month since school started, and the students have yet to adjust to him. I don’t want to wait until graduation for the students to finally be comfortable in this classroom, so do something about it, will you?”

You gritted your teeth at the dismissive tone in his words. He was pushing his work off onto you, using the excuse that you’re the class president to validate his actions, and it irritated you. You did want to see Ushijima smiling and laughing along with the other students in class, and your wish of hearing his laughter was enough to help you ignore your annoying homeroom teacher’s tone.

“Of course, sir. I’ll do my best to help the students feel more comfortable around him.”

He hummed in acknowledgement and waved a dismissive hand at you. You bowed to him before you left the faculty office, bowing to the other teachers as well and closing the door. Your teeth clutched your bottom lip between them as you held a smile in. Now you had a chance to get to know Ushijima and become friends with him. You couldn’t keep your heart from fluttering, and giddiness filled you up with determination. Mission: Get Ushijima to Open Up to You was a go! 


	2. a little closer

After your homeroom teacher told you to get Ushijima to engage with others more, you thought of possible ways to do so. You tossed and turned all night thinking of how you could accomplish this task, but you came up empty with any ideas, and sleep claimed you. When you woke up the next morning for school, the thought of Ushijima flew from your mind until you made it to homeroom.

He sat at his desk, reclined in his chair as his hands rested on the top of his desk and eyes looked out the window at the sunrise. Your eyes shot straight to his hands, bandages covering the expanses of his fingers and palms. Fear rose in your stomach as you thought of what could have happened to him. You wanted to ask him what had happened, but your homeroom teacher cleared his throat, and the students scurried to their seats. 

Your homeroom teacher told your class to pull out their English textbooks and a book you all were reading for class and wrote practice problems on the board tied to the text. As class started, you couldn’t help but peer back at Ushijima. Instead of meeting his face, you saw the top of his head and knew he was asleep. You bit the inside of your mouth to keep a soft smile from spreading across your face as you thought of how cute he looked asleep at his desk that seemed too small for him.

A student walked up to the blackboard after the homeroom teacher called on them, and they answered the question they were given. After the teacher gave them a good job for their work, the student bowed. They were about to walk back to their seat when a loud commotion in the hall brought silence upon the classroom.

“Where the hell is that kid?!” an angry voice yelled in the hallway, and several scurrying footsteps could be heard echoing in the halls. Several students whispered to each other about what could be happening, and a few looked back at Ushijima’s sleeping form, wondering if the commotion was connected to him.

“Calm down, Mr. Arakawa! I know this is bad, but this isn’t good for your blood pressure,” another voice said.

“Shut the hell up! You don’t even understand the severity of the situation, so stay out of this,” the angry voice said, and the footsteps came closer to your classroom.

The classroom door ripped open and slammed against the frame as it slid as far open as it could go. Your chemistry teacher, Mr. Arakawa stood fuming in the doorway as the biology teacher, Ms. Tamura, tried to hold him back. Mr. Arakawa shook her grip off of him as he stormed into your classroom. 

“What’s wrong, Mr. Arakawa? Is there a problem?” your homeroom teacher said as he pulled the book down from his face to rest in his lap.

“Oh, there is, Mr. Hirota! I came back to my chemistry lab to see all my glass beakers, flasks, and vials scattered on the floor,  _ broken _ ! The last people in my classroom yesterday were Sato and Ushijima, so I’m here to ask them what the hell happened yesterday.” The chemistry teacher stomped to the back of the room towards Ushijima and slammed his hands down on the bare space next to the boy’s head.

Ushijima blinked and sat up straight as a hand rubbed at his sleepy eyes. 

“So glad of you to finally wake up, Ushijima. Mind telling me what the hell you and Sato did in my classroom?” Mr. Arakawa asked with wide eyes and flaring nostrils.

Ushijima blinked his eyes and stared straight into the teacher’s eyes. “We did what you asked us to do. Sato was called to the faculty office before we ended, so I finished the rest of it up. Then I went home.”

“Bullshit! Then tell me why the hell the beakers, flasks, and vials are broken on the floor! Do you know how much all that cost?”

The classroom sat in silence as the anger from Mr. Arakawa filled the room. 

“I don’t care if you hate me, or if you’re a punk mafia bastard like everyone says you are, but destroying school property is not okay.”

“I told you I went home after I cleaned the rest of the room. I didn’t break anything in your room, sir,” Ushijima responded, and Mr. Arakawa pursed his lips as his eyes glared daggers at the boy.

“Then why the hell do you have bandages coating your hands, huh? You must have cut them on the broken glass in the room. Who else would do such a thing except a punk like you with no manners?”

Mr. Arakawa looked seconds away from grabbing Ushijima’s collar and throwing him to the ground. As Mr. Hirota sighed and dragged a hand down his bored face, you stood up in your seat, tired of the accusations from Mr. Arakawa.

“Did you see any blood on the floor?” you asked as you turned around to look at him, and Mr. Arakawa’s face contorted into an even angrier expression as he looked at you.

The teacher’s eyes burned with annoyance. “You’re defending this bastard? Just because there wasn’t any blood on the floor doesn’t mean he didn’t get cut from breaking the beakers and flasks!”

“If he did break them and got cut, surely he would have dripped  _ some _ blood onto the floor considering how much of his hand is covered in bandages. How do you know he didn’t get cut from something else? You’ve barely even let him defend himself after you threw out accusations at him,” you told Mr. Arakawa, and he jabbed his tongue at the inside of his cheek.

“I understand that you are the class president and want to look out for your classmates, but  _ you _ are the one who left him all alone in the classroom. That means you have no idea what he got up to either! You’re partially at fault here!”

You opened your mouth to retort back, but Ushijima stood up and stared at Mr. Arakawa.

“How much will it cost to replace it all?” 

Your eyes blinked in confusion as you processed his words, and Mr. Arakawa gave a forced laugh and pointed an accusatory finger at Ushijima.

“So you admit to breaking all the glass equipment!”

“If that’s what will make you sleep easier at night.”

“I will have a talk with your parents about this, Ushijima. Expect a phone call soon going over all the costs and punishment. If you do such a thing like this again, I will make sure to get you expelled.” With that, Mr. Arakawa let out a loud  _ hmph _ and left the classroom, slamming the door shut behind him. 

“Ah, that ruined my mood to teach,” your homeroom teacher said, and he leaned back in his chair before placing the book in his hand on his head and crossing his arms over his chest. “You can have a study hall now. I don’t feel like teaching English to you guys at the moment.” Snores could be heard coming from him as his chest moved up and down from his breathing. 

“Hey, Sato-san, can we go outside and play soccer?” a boy asked you, his friends standing behind him with pleading looks on their faces.

You shook your head with a sympathetic look on your face. “I’m sorry. I think it would be best to use this time to study or catch up on other work. If another teacher caught you outside during class time, you and Mr. Hirota would all get in trouble for it.”

The boy’s shoulders slumped, and he trudged away with his friends, a pout on his face. Another classmate came up to you, a girl this time, and whispered in your ear if she could read her manga she had been hiding in her bag. You gave her a silent nod and told her to be extra careful not to get caught, though, and she grabbed your hands between hers as she thanked you a thousand times.

Your other peers casted Ushijima wary looks as they whispered to each other and huddled closer to each other to keep away from him. While they gossiped, you sat in the seat in front of him and pulled the chair closer to him until you sat right in front of him. 

“Why did you speak up like that? It was like basically admitting you were guilty,” you said when he looked at you with bored eyes.

“Because it was annoying.”

You flinched at the bluntness in his words. “You’re… honest, aren’t you.” 

He shrugged before he rested his head on his desk. “He interrupted my sleep, and if I didn’t say anything, both of you would have kept arguing and kept me from my nap.” His eyes closed, and he turned his head away from you, as if telling you to leave him be now. 

Though you wanted to keep talking to him, you didn’t want to annoy him by talking to him while he was trying to sleep, so you whirled around in the seat and stood up. After pushing the chair back to its desk, you walked to your seat and plopped down, pulled out your textbooks, and worked on homework. You wanted to pull out your phone and swipe through social media, but you were unlucky and were seated in the front row, right in front of the sleeping Mr. Hirota. He would nag you about setting a good example for the other students, and the last thing you wanted to hear was his condescending tone lecturing you about being a model student.

The bell rang, and the next class started. More teachers came to your room for their class and left to allow the next one to come, and before long, the lunch bell rang. Some students pulled out their bentos while others dashed towards the bakery to grab their favorite bread and pastries before they ran out. Your hand reached to grab your bento from your bag, but Ushijima’s figure caught your attention. With hands shoved in his pockets, he walked out of the room and disappeared into the hallway. He moved in the opposite direction of the mass of students, and curiosity nipped at you. Once you were sure no one was paying attention to you, you scrambled from your seat after Ushijima. The broad expanse of his back disappeared around a corner, and you looked around before sneaking after him. 

He continued walking

A large figure crouched on the ground near a tree and bushes with its back to you. As you stepped closer, you realized it was Ushijima, whose eyes focused on an object blocked from your view. The sound of a soft purr reached your ears, and you stood behind Ushijima, peering over his shoulder to see a black kitten lying on the ground underneath the tree while his large hand stroked through its ebony fur. The whites of the bandages coating his hands stood out against the fur, and realization hit you.

“If you got your cuts from the cat, you should have just said so,” you said as you squatted beside Ushijima and held your legs close to your body. “Everyone thinks you’re guilty now even though your hands were their only proof.”

Ushijima hand rested against the kitten’s flank when he stopped petting it, and the kitten yawned before it licked at his bandaged hand. Sharp, white teeth nipped at his fingers, and he curled his fingers to playfully tug at the kitten’s mouth. “Would it have made a difference if I told them? Do you think they’d believe me?” The black kitten’s tongue poked out to lick at his slender fingers, and his eyes remained transfixed on the furry animal.

“You never know unless you try,” came your weak response.

He hummed in a dismissive tone and scratched the kitten’s stomach, who meowed and scratched at his hands. Even when small drops of blood began to form from the cuts, Ushijima didn’t retract his hand. Instead, he held his hand out to the kitten and received a chomp to his fingers.

“It’s teething,” he said as the kitten continued to gnaw at his hands.

“I can see that.” Your eyes focused on his face for any signs of pain or discomfort, but an expressionless face was all you saw. “Doesn’t it hurt?”

“It doesn’t matter. This kitten seems to have been abandoned by its mother and has no one else to rely on. If it needs to bite my hand to help itself, then I don’t care.” While the kitten bit at his hand, he turned his head towards you. “There’s a can of wet cat food in my bag. Can you grab it so I can feed the cat?”

You bit your tongue as a retort rose in your throat. His bag hung from the side of his desk all the way back in the classroom, and you didn’t even have a clue as to where you two were. As if sensing your annoyance and exasperation, he told you a quick route back to the class for you to take. You pushed yourself up from your squatting position and walked towards the classroom using Ushijima’s route. In no time, you arrived at your classroom and slipped inside. 

Students busied themselves with eating their bentos and talking about whatever was on their mind, and you took the chance to sneak up to Ushijima’s desk. You crouched on the floor and unzipped his bag as you looked around to make sure people were still in their conversations and ignoring you. You ruffled around in Ushijima’s bag in search of the cat food he told you about.

“What are you doing in Ushijima-san’s bag, Sato-san?” a voice asked, and you flinched, not expecting anyone to pay attention to you. You should have known better though, as Ushijima’s desk had a bunch of empty space surrounding it and setting it apart from the other desks.

You trailed your eyes up from Ushijima’s bag to see a group of boys staring at you with confused expressions on their faces. As their eyes bored into you, you pulled a strand of hair behind your ear to distract yourself from their attention on you. “Uh, n-nothing,” you said, and you cringed when you stuttered. One of the boys opened their mouth to speak, but your guardian angel saved you.

“Hey, you guys! Y/N-chan might just be getting something for Ushijima-kun. You know how much she loves helping us out, so she could be doing the same for him, who knows?” Satori slung his arms over the boys’ shoulders and pulled them towards his seat. “Come talk with me about the latest Shounen Jump instead. I’ve been dying to discuss it with someone, and you guys are the only ones in this class who I know read it.”

As the guys nodded with hesitance at the sudden shift in conversation and discussed the latest issue, Satori looked back at you and gave you a wink. You clasped your hands together in thanks before you focused back on Ushijima’s bag, and Satori talked with the boys he steered away from your crouched figure. A metal can caught your attention, and you grabbed it and hid it in between your hands. You whipped your head from side to side to see if anyone was staring at you, and when the coast was clear, you rushed back the way you came. Ushijima and the black kitten remained underneath the same tree, and you jogged up to them. 

When Ushijima looked up at you, you handed him the can of cat food, and he opened it up and sat it down in front of the kitten as you squatted back down on the ground next to him. The kitten lunged at the food and gobbled chunks of it, which made anxiety bubble in your stomach as you thought of the kitten choking. After the kitten let out a cough when it swallowed a large chunk, it slowed down, and you watched its tiny body crouch on the earth as it lapped up the food. 

“Is it a boy or a girl?” you asked, the question popping into your mind, and Ushijima grabbed the kitten by its sides and lifted it in the air, its stomach facing his face.

“He’s a boy,” he said, and you grabbed the kitten from his hands and placed it back on the ground when it started to wiggle around in his hands.

“Don’t do that to him! You’re going to hurt the poor guy.”

Ushijima looked down at the kitten as he scampered back to the food and indulged in it “He seems to have forgotten about it already.”

You rolled your eyes and poked him in the side. He made a grunt of discomfort, and when he turned to give you a glare, you glared back. “Doesn’t mean it was uncomfortable when it happened. Be nicer to it. Do you even know how old it is?”

“I saw him on the first day of school a month ago. He looked as if he had just opened, so he might have been around two weeks old or so then, meaning he’s probably six weeks old.”

Your lips pulled down into a frown as your eyes trained on the black kitten’s small body. He was only six weeks, and yet he was already a stray. “At least you’ve been taking care of it, the poor thing. He might not have made it if you hadn’t.” Ushijima hummed, and the kitten let out a soft burp once it finished his food, making you giggle at how cute he was. “Do you have a name for him?” 

“Kuroo.”

“Kuroo? Why Kuroo? Isn’t that a surname?”

“He reminds me of someone with the same name. And it doesn’t matter. Kuroo doesn’t seem to care,” he said, and you looked to see the kitten licking his lips, the can of cat food finished in front of him.

“Kuroo,” you called to him, and the kitten mewed before he walked up to you and rubbed against your leg.

“See. He doesn’t care.”

You giggled as you held out your hand for Kuroo, and he pushed the top of his ebony head against it. Your hands scratched behind his ears, he purred and gave you a cute smile that sent your heart melting from how adorable he was. Your eyes flitted to Ushijima to see him looking at Kuroo with expressionless eyes. “Are you taking him home with you?”

“My apartment complex doesn’t allow animals,” Ushijima replied.

“And my dad is allergic to cats.” You sighed in disappointment as you thought of the kitten being alone for the rest of his life before an idea came to mind. “Satori—I mean Tendou,” you corrected when he looked at you in confusion, “has been talking about wanting a pet for some time. Do you want me to see if he’d be willing to take Kuroo?”

“If you want.”

You smiled as you thought about how happy Satori would be when you told him about Kuroo. As you were trapped in your thoughts, the bell rang, and you jumped at the sound, causing Kuroo to scamper off into the bushes. Ushijima stood up, and you looked up at his tall body before standing up yourself when he started to walk off. Your eyes stared at his retreating figure, and your lips pulled apart into a smile. You were able to have a conversation with him. 

“That’s progress, isn’t it?” you said to yourself, and you rushed after Ushijima to catch up to him. Maybe getting to know him wouldn’t be as hard as you thought it would.


	3. next to you

When school ended, you told Satori about Kuroo, and once you dragged him outside and called the little kitten to you, he jumped on the idea of taking him home. His mother had been thinking of buying a cat, and his father had recommended a black one, so Kuroo fit the description. While Satori held the kitten in his arms and stroked his back, you placed a kiss on the top of Kuroo’s ebony head. He mewed and swiped his tongue along your chin, which caused you to giggle from the rough texture of his tongue tickling you.

As Satori disappeared in the direction of his home with Kuroo clutched in his arms, you thanked the kitten for the opportunity to get closer to Ushijima. Your heart bubbled with joy at the image of the kitten being showered in love from Satori’s family, but you couldn’t help a small part of you from feeling disappointed. Now that Kuroo was gone, you had no opportunity to talk to Ushijima about something unrelated to school work. You wanted a way to speak with him and learn more about him.

“All right, kids. Since some of you have been getting noisy with those next to you, I’ve decided to reassign your seats to spare me and your other teachers from unnecessary migraines,” your homeroom teacher said the next day as he stood at the podium in the front of the classroom, hands gripping the edges as he slouched his body over it and looked at your class with a bored expression. At his words, your spirits rose in your body. If you were lucky, you could sit near Ushijima and talk to him—so long as Mr. Hirota didn’t drag you back to the front of the room. “Just finish before homeroom 

The other students groaned as Mr. Hirota sat down and gestured for you to take care of it. You stood up, bowed, and walked to the podium. You pulled out a white box from underneath and set it on the surface of the podium. Slips of paper with seat numbers Your eyes scanned the bored expressions of your peers, settled on Ushijima for a second, and flickered across the room as you caught yourself staring at Ushijima.

“I know moving seats is a tedious task, and you’d rather stay sitting near your friends, but this will be a great opportunity for you to get to know your other classmates,” you said, and your classmates sighed. “You’ll always have lunch and after school to talk with your close friends, so let’s get this over with and start class.”

Satori stood up and shoved his hands into his pockets as he looked around at your classmates. “Well, let’s get this over with you guys. As Y/N-chan said, there are other opportunities to hang with your friends, so don’t get all bummed out by this seat change.” While you drew up on the board the seating arrangement you thought of, he flipped his chair up onto his desk, and the other students followed him, though not without complaints. 

By the time you had finished drawing the seating chart, all the tables had been flipped, save for Ushijima, who sat in his seat as if nothing was happening. You decided not to force him to follow the other students, so you switched his seat number with a random one so he wouldn’t have to move. Then, one by one, your peers drew numbers with you picking last. Eyes flicked from the small piece of paper up to the black board as students figured out where they sat. Your heart sank as you saw your seat was near the door in the front row, the farthest away from Ushijima.

“But Miyata, I don’t want to sit there next to Ushijima-san. It’s so far away from you, and he’s scary!” a shrill voice complained, and you turned to see a girl pouting as she clutched onto her friend who was trying to walk to their seat. 

You walked up to them and held out your slip of paper for her to see. “If you don’t want to sit there, Naito-san, do you want to switch with me? It’s closer to Miyata-san,” you offered, and Naito clasped your hands in hers. 

“Thank you so much, Sato-san! You’re a lifesaver.” 

As the girl ran off to her friend, you sighed and walked to your new seat beside Ushijima, who looked ready to fall asleep. The seat in front of him remained empty, and you saw a boy looking at the seat with discomfort. Satori narrowed his eyes as he stared at the boy before he walked up to him and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hey, Sekiguchi-kun, wanna trade seats with me? My seat’s near the door, so if you sit there, you’ll be able to make it to lunch quicker when the bell rings,” he said, and the boy’s eyes lit up. Without a word, Sekiguchi made his way towards Satori’s seat—now his own—and Satori plopped down in front of Ushijima. While the other students moved around to find their new seats, Satori turned around to face you and Ushijima.

“This looks like the start of the three musketeers, doesn’t it?” he said, and you stared at him with a “really” face, Ushijima blinking at him slowly. “Don’t look at me like that, you two! I’m saying this could be the start to an amazing friendship, but I can see I’m the only one thinking that. Tragic!” 

You shook your head at his stupidity, and he glared at you before his eyes lit up.

“Ah! I almost forgot to tell you! Kuroo’s been adapting well to our house, and my mom loves him already. He was a little scared when we took him to the vet to get his rabies shot, but afterwards, he was calm and curled up in my lap on the ride home. Thanks for telling me about him, or else Lord knows what would have happened to him,” Satori said, as he clapped his hands together in front of him in thanks.

“No, no! You should be telling Ushijima all this, not me. I’m not the one who found Kuroo and fed him,” you told him, shaking your hands in front of you.

Satori whipped his head to look at Ushijima, who just hummed in acknowledgement. Your friend’s face contorted into a face filled with suspicion. He stroked the bottom of his chin as he mulled over something in his mind.

“Wait a second, if you found the cat and raised him, does that make you his father?” Satori pointed at Ushijima before he dragged his finger towards you. “And then Y/N-chan is the mother since she helped a bit too.” His finger moved to point at his own crestfallen face. “Does that mean I’m just the adoptive father?!” he asked, tone raising in pitch as his voice became raw with forced emotion.

You covered your face to hide your blush at Satori’s word calling you and Ushijima Kuroo’s parents, which registered in your mind as the two of you being husband and wife. Curse you and your overactive imagination that created fictional scenarios with any handsome guy within a meter radius. Your fingers spread apart to allow you to peek through as you looked at Ushijima to gauge his reaction. His emotionless face left a sour taste in your mouth, and you scrunched your face up in disappointment, expecting him to react a bit more to the suggestion in your friend’s words.

“No,” Ushijima said, and both you and Satori looked at him in confusion. “Kuroo’s mother abandoned him and so did his father. Sato and I are not a substitute for his parents, as we are not cats.”

“So you’re saying you and Y/N-chan would be a substitute if you both were cats?” Satori asked, as if he were trying to squeeze a certain sentence out of the boy’s mouth.

“By the time Sato found him, it would have been too late to foster him as he would have already weaned.”

Your friend flopped in his chair, an exaggerated sigh escaping his lips. “I didn’t expect such a straightforward answer.” His posture straightened as he slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He shoved it into Ushijima’s face, and you leaned in your seat to see a picture of Kuroo on his screen, tongue poking out to lick his whiskers while his hazel eyes looked up at the camera. “It may have only been a week since I brought him home, but he’s gotten a lot bigger now. Are you happy to see your child growing up so well?”

Ushijima hummed, and Satori swiped across the screen to show a video of the kitten playing with a cat toy. The black kitten jumped in the air as it leaped up towards the feather attached to a stick, but at the last second, his body twisted around, and he fell down to the floor. You let out a surprised sound as Kuroo’s tiny body slammed into the ground, but Ushijima’s eyes stayed trained on the video, face blank.

“Kuroo got scared when he fell, so I had to spend some time calming him down. He sure is hyper for a 7 week old,” Satori said, and you nodded along. Again, Ushijima only hummed and turned his attention to the window, head resting on his hand. 

“All right, I’ll assume you’re all finished. Takagi-san seems to be the only one missing, so she’ll be sitting in front of Sato-san when she comes back. Now get your math books out until Mrs. Yoshino gets here for your statistics class.”

As Satori turned back around in his seat and focused on the front of the room, the other students pulling out their materials, you watched Ushijima’s side profile. 

His lips parted as his eyes followed a bird passing by the window, and your head tilted to the side. While it wasn’t much, it was still the most expression you had seen on Ushijima’s face, and your heart fluttered as your breath caught in your chest. As the rising sun cast golden rays onto his face, you imagined what Ushijima would look like with a smile on his face, but the image disappeared from your mind the moment your math teacher started class. 

As the Mrs. Yoshino wrote equations on the board, you copied them down and set to work on solving them. You had just learned the formulas used in the equations a few days ago, but the steps to solving them flew clear from your brain as you stared at the random letters and numbers written on your paper. The longer you stared, the more the writing seemed to mesh together, and you clutched your head in exasperation. 

To take your mind away from the painful work in front of you, you looked at Satori, who looked just as confused as you with all the head scratching he was doing. You couldn’t even tell if the scratching was making him bleed because of his red hair, but you prayed he wasn’t destroying his scalp. You then turned to Ushijima, who stared out the window with his face resting in his hand. He really liked looking out windows, you thought, and your eyes fell down to the notebook on his desk. It had been a few minutes since the teacher had written the equations on the board, but as you stared at his paper covered in neat writing, you realized he had not only written the equations but solved them as well. Your mind hurt even more as you wondered how he was able to finish the problems so fast.

While you didn’t agree with cheating, you just couldn’t figure out how to solve the equations, and Ushijima’s work was right next to you. You peered over at his work to see if it would help you, and as you scanned through his writing, you almost smacked yourself in the face when his work jogged your memory. The work to solve the first problem was basic, yet you couldn’t even remember it. You attempted the second problem by yourself and checked it with his, giving yourself an invisible pat on the back when you got the same answer. 

Once you had finished the other problems and waited for your other classmates to finish as well, you sat back in your seat and looked at Ushijima, which seemed to be your new favorite hobby, just as staring out windows seemed to be Ushijima’s. Even though his face was tilted away from you, his back appeared tired and bored, as if  _ anything _ was better than being here. Whenever the teacher wrote on the board, he wrote it down as well, and you tilted your head as you noticed he wrote with his left hand. Any equations given to solve would be written down and solved in the blink of an eye by him, and you wondered what it would be like to study with him.

Your eyes twinkled and heart sped up. Opportunities continued to arise for you, and you knew you had to take them. The next test there was, you’d be sure to ask him if he’d help you. It wouldn’t be a date, though. You knew better than to get ahead of yourself there, but imagining Ushijima leaning over you to check your work as you worked side by side sent your pulse racing and mind whirring with fictional scenarios. If you wanted to get closer to Ushijima, you had to find ways to be around him, and studying was the perfect opportunity. You just hoped you could find more occasions to be with him in the future.


	4. thanks, kuroo (hanging out part 1)

A few weeks passed with you, Satori, and Ushijima chatting during breaks and working together in class, though it was mostly Satori doing the talking. Ushijima would offer grunts, hums, or a few words in response, yet it never deterred your fiery friend from speaking to him. Whenever you asked Ushijima for help on a math problem you didn’t understand, he’d give you short, straight forward answers that, while helpful, left you wanting him to talk to you more so you could hear his voice.

The weekend came, though, and interrupted your weekdays filled with chatter. You laid on your bed, eyes scanning the romance manga in your hands. The main characters were so close to kissing, and you were on edge waiting for the long awaited moment to happen. As you were reading, your phone buzzed on your bed beside you, and when you answered, the chipper voice of your close friend hit your ears and made you cringe.

“Hey, Y/N-chan! What are you doing? I’m reading me some Shounen Jump, but you wouldn’t care since you have no taste and won’t read it with me. We could have a bonding moment where we talk about Shounen Jump!”

“What did you call me for?” you asked, and you could imagine the dissatisfied look on Satori’s face.

“Do I need a reason to check up on my bestie from time to time?”

“You never call me unless you need something,” you said, and he sighed.

“Got me there…” His line was silent for a few seconds before he spoke again. “Kuroo’s running out of cat food, and I was wondering if you’d be oh-so-kind as to go to the pet store and pick some up for him.” 

“Why can’t you do it yourself? I was busy reading my shoujo manga until you interrupted me, and I’d really like to get back to it. I’m not your servant.”

Satori let out a huff. “Look, my parents don’t want to leave Kuroo alone yet since he’s still young, and I don’t want to scare him by bringing him to a public place with me. Can you please buy some food for him? My parents will be gone this whole weekend!”

“My parents don’t want me going into that side of town by myself!” you said, remembering your dad’s stories about girls your age getting hit on before being kidnapped and sold into sex slave contracts. You knew they were stories meant to scare you away from that area, but you couldn’t help the creeping feeling that maybe there was some truth to your dad’s words.

“Bring Ushijima-kun,” he said as he picked at the dirt underneath his fingernails.

Your heart sped up at the mention of the boy’s name. “W-What?”

Purrs vibrated through your phone as Satori ran his fingers through Kuroo’s fur where he laid on his stomach. “Though he doesn’t show it, I think he has a soft spot for Kuroo. If you tell him you want to buy cat food for Kuroo, I’m sure he’ll come along with you at the drop of a hat. Plus, you wouldn’t be going alone, so your dad would be able to rest easy at night.” You heard the sound of rustling as Satori sat up in his bed, and Kuroo let out an aggravated mew as he slid off the boy’s chest. “Sorry,” he said to the kitten before he focused back on his phone. “You wanted a chance to get closer to Ushijima-kun, and here I am presenting it to you, only for you to ignore it. It’s either you muster up the courage to ask Ushijima-kun to go to the store with you, or I scare Kuroo half to death by bringing him out into public. You decide.”

You hugged your knees to your chest and rested your head on your knees. “Even if I wanted to ask him to go with me, I don’t have his phone number…”

Satori hummed. “I don’t either.”

Your face fell as the plan to hang out with Ushijima fell through.

“But!” Satori interjected, and you perked up. “He did say he went to the park near the school on Saturdays for a jog, so you might be able to run into him there, not literally though because that would hurt.”

You bit your lip as your body fidgeted. All you wanted to do was run out of your house to the park to see Ushijima, and Satori seemed to have picked up on it. He let out a sigh.

“You’d better hurry up before he leaves and before Kuroo starts getting cranky! Just kidding. There’s still enough food for Kuroo to have lunch and dinner, but then he’ll be out, so take your time and tell me all about it when you come back!”

“It-it’s not a date!” you told him, and he cackled.

“I never said it was, but you wanted to talk to Ushijima more, so this is your chance! Take it or I won’t be as nice in the future.” With those words, he ended the call, leaving you to scurry for a change of clothes and a pair of shoes.   
After you pulled on a velvet suspender skirt and paired it with a white shirt, flats, and black thigh highs, you stood in front of your body mirror and looked at yourself. You were just going to meet Ushijima and ask him if he wanted to buy things for Kuroo with you, yet it looked like you were about to go on a date. You clutched your head as thoughts flooded your mind. Were you overdressed? Would he think you were asking him on a date? Would _others_ think you two were on a date? Would he even say yes to your proposition? Before you could second guess yourself further, you slipped on a beret from your closet along with a black purse and left your room.

“Are you going somewhere?” your dad asked, and you flinched, turning your attention towards where he sat on the loveseat in your living room, newspaper in hand and coffee on the table beside him. His eyes scanned the newspaper, but you knew his attention was on you. He tended to be asleep during this time, so seeing him awake threw you off. Instead of just being able to sneak right off with a little note for your mother telling her where you were going, your father caught you. Your father, who would lock you in your room and never let you out if you told him where you were planning to go and with who you were going with. 

“I was going to meet some friends at the park and do some shopping.” You apologized to your father in your head as the lie slipped from your mouth. “Is that all right?”

He hummed. “Just stay safe. Lots of creeps out lately. Make sure you call if anything happens, all right, honey?”

“Will do! Thanks, dad.” You gave him a quick goodbye peck on the cheek to be in his good graces before you exited your house and set off towards the park. 

By the time you were halfway there, your phone vibrated, and you checked it to see a text from Satori. When you opened it, a picture of a map with a red path met your eyes. Satori typed that it was the route Ushijima ran at this time, and a star marked where he started and ended. He kept a consistent schedule and started at a certain time to make sure he ended at a specific time as well. His run was a few minutes close to ending, so Satori recommended you hurry up before you missed him. 

At the speed of light—or as fast as you could walk in the flats adorning your feet—you went to the spot Satori said Ushijima would end his run and bounced on your feet as you waited for a sign that he was close. You paced around in front of a flower stand, and you could feel the vendor’s confused eyes on you as you walked in circles. Your eyes caught a jogging figure as it closed in, and your heart pounded when you saw it was Ushijima in a windbreaker with a towel hanging around his neck and a water bottle in his hand. Before he came closer, you pulled out a mirror from your purse and fixed your hair while the vendor stared at you with a blank expression. 

You ignored the vendor as Ushijima slowed down, settled into a slow walk and drank his water while patting his face with the towel. With a quick inhale and exhale to psych yourself up, you walked towards him. It was time to put your acting chops to the test, and when you got close to him, you pretended to be shocked that you saw him.

“Ushijima-san? Is that you?” you said, and he let his hand holding the water bottle fall to his side as he looked down at you. “I didn’t expect to run into you here.” You cringed inside and hoped he wouldn’t catch that you were lying. “Did you just finish your jog?”

He hummed and took another swig from his water.

“Are you doing anything after you cool down?” You clasped your hands behind your back as you walked beside him, walking twice as fast as him to keep up with his long legs. When he shook his head, your body raised in excitement. “Then do you want to go buy some things with me for Kuroo?” At the sound of the black kitten’s name, he looked at you from the corner of his eye to let you know you had his attention, and you smiled. “Satori—Tendou—said Kuroo is running out of food, and since the kitty’s still young, he doesn’t want to leave him alone or drag him into public and scar him. He asked me if I could buy some food and other toys for him from the pet store. The problem is I don’t want to go to that part of town by myself because of the rumors, but I also don’t want to disappoint Sa—Tendou-chan.”

“All right.”

You blinked as you hadn’t expected him to reply right away. You thought he would complain about how he was all sweaty from his run and want to go home and shower, but his face didn’t give away any sign of discomfort and urgent need to leave. A smile spread on your face, and you skipped around him. “Thank you! I’m sorry for asking you when you just finished jogging, though.”

“Let’s go, pres,” he said, and he started off in the direction of the pet shop, leaving you to scramble after his long legs.

As you two walked on the sidewalks, people made way for him, and you couldn’t suppress a soft giggle as it made you feel like royalty or a celebrity with a bodyguard. Whenever someone would bump into you, Ushijima would just stare at them, and they’d apologize to you an embarrassing amount of times before running off to escape Ushijima’s intense gaze. This happened a few times before you two reached the pet store. The tall shelves filled with pet food, toys, beds, cages, and collars met you when you entered, and you blinked at how spacious the tiny store was as you had never been inside.

Your eyes searched for a sign or an indication of where the cat food would be located, and Ushijima moved from his spot next to you before he disappeared into an isle. You rushed after him as fear of being left behind and lost in this unfamiliar store settled into your stomach. Upon reaching the isle he went into, you saw him standing in the center as he looked at the various cans of cat food.

You walked up to him and crouched down on the floor next to him to read the cans to see what to buy Kuroo. The problem was you didn’t have a cat and never did, so you were at a loss for what to buy. With a groan, you stood up and looked at Ushijima, whose eyes scanned the shelves. “Do you remember what food you bought before for Kuroo? I didn’t look at the can before.” 

As you turned your attention back to the shelves of cat food, a body pressed into your back, and you looked up to see Ushijima reaching over you. The warmth from his body spread into yours and set your heart racing at his proximity to you. He pulled back to reveal a can of cat food in his hand, and you let out a disappointed sigh when his heat disappeared. 

“It was this one

Your hands dropped to your side, and you closed your eyes with an irritated sigh. “I just remembered that Satori didn’t give me his money to pay for the cat food. I’m going to kill him when I see him next.” You shuffled around in your bag to find your wallet, and when you did, you opened it to check how much money you had. It seemed your mom took the liberty to give you your allowance early, and you thanked her as the wallet full of yen bills greeted you.

“That would be illegal,” Ushijima said, and you shook your head and told him it was a joke. He nodded with a hum in acknowledgement and grabbed several more cans of cat food. “I’ll buy the food for Kuroo since the cashiers know me.”

After he grabbed a dozen or more loose cans, he went towards the cash register and left you scrambling after him. The cashier placed the cans in a bag and handed them to him by the time you reached him, and you bowed to the cashier as you rushed after Ushijima again. Since he paid for the cat food, you offered to hold the bag for him, and when he placed it in your hands, you grunted from the weight. He reached to grab the bag back from you, but you turned away and said you could handle it. You were a strong, independent woman.

He nodded, and you two walked on the sidewalk back towards Satori’s house. As you passed by a sports shop, Ushijima said he was going to stop in for a new windbreaker. You nodded and told him you would be waiting outside for him. He went inside, and you leaned against the wall outside, eyes watching all the people on the street as they scurried about like little ants. While you waited for Ushijima, you decided to make up fictional scenarios of where each person was going and what they were doing. The woman walking her poodle was heading towards a dog show after visiting the pet groomer to show off her pristine pooch’s fluffy white fur and win first place. The group of highschoolers had just finished Saturday classes and were heading to karaoke, and the man in a suit was running late for his work. Whether or not you were right didn’t matter to you as you wasted time creating little stories of your own.

It had been several minutes since Ushijima had disappeared into the store, and you peered around the wall into the windows to see if you could catch sight of him. Your eyes caught sight of a maroon jacket, but before you could confirm whether it belonged to Ushijima, a hand grabbed your wrist and pulled you into the alley next to the sports shop, the bag of cat food slipping from your hand. You flinched as your back hit against the brick wall, and a hand slammed next to your head.

You looked up to see a group of three guys grinning down at you and blocked your escape route, a sick glint in their eyes. Your eyes widened as panic set in, and your breathing turned shallower, and your heart pounded in your ears. The guy with his hand next to your face leaned in closer to you.

“What are you doing all alone, pretty? Do you want to hang out with us?” he asked you, and you cringed as the smell of cigarettes wafted from his clothes and burned your nose. When you turned your face away from him to try to keep from breathing in the smoke full on, he grabbed your chin and yanked your face back towards him, fingers digging into your jaw. “Don’t look away when I’m talking to you.”

“Maybe you’re scaring her. You are pretty ugly,” one of the other guys said as he pulled out a cigarette and lit it, taking a drag from it and blowing the smoke in your direction. You coughed and swatted the smoke away from your face. 

“She’s pretty cute, huh? Did we just hit the jackpot?” the third guy said as he stepped closer to you. The guy gripping your face gave him a glare, and he stepped back.

Your legs began shaking, and the guy in front of you looked you up and down, a creepy smirk adorning his face. His hand released your jaw. “Sorry for scaring you. If you aren’t doing anything, why don’t you come with us? We’ll show you a good time.”

The guy’s face closed in on yours, and your mind went flashed back to all the lessons your dad forced you to take in case a situation like this arose. The closer he got, the more his breath smelling of cigarettes fanned your face and made you gag. Your knee creeped up, aiming straight for in between his legs, but before you had the chance to drive it home, a voice interrupted.

“What’s going on here?”

All at once, you and the three guys turned to look at the entrance of the alley to see Ushijima standing there, eyes devoid of emotion as he took in the sight of three guys surrounding a girl with her knee raised. He walked closer to you, and the other two guys stumbled back away from you.

“Shit, she has a boyfriend!” one of the guys cursed, and the guy trapping you stumbled back as his wide eyes remained glued on Ushijima’s tall body.

“Let’s get out of here,” another said, and the three of them rushed out of the alley, peering back to make sure Ushijima wasn’t following them as they stumbled over each other to escape. He stared at their retreating figures before turning his attention towards you, your legs shaking from the experience.

“Are you all right?” he asked you, and you nodded, clutching your chest as you waited for your heart rate to slow down. He stood

As you and Ushijima set off towards Satori’s house again, you apologized to your father for not heeding his words. If Ushijima hadn’t been there, you weren’t sure what would have happened. You knew a little bit of self defense because of what your father made you learn as his only child, but you never did the moves for real. You shook your head to rid your mind of all the possible what ifs and ran after Ushijima.


	5. talk to me (hanging out part 2)

“I’m sorry for dragging you into this store, but I just remembered that I need to buy some new stockings for school!” You clapped your hands in front of your face as you and Ushijima stood outside a clothing store. After buying the food for Kuroo as well as a few cat toys, you and Ushijima had been on your way back to Satori’s house when seeing a specific clothing store grabbed your attention and reminded you of what you needed to buy. “I’ll be very quick. You can wait outside if you’d like.” 

He nodded and stood off to the side of the store without complaint as you ran in. A few people looked at him as he stood with his hands in his pockets, and a girl or two asked him for his number, only to be ignored. You went straight to the tights section and surfed through the options. Every so often, you’d peer out at Ushijima to see if he was getting impatient. His still body let you know he wouldn’t be moving until you were done, and you hurried to the cash register to buy the tights. A couple of girls waited in front of you, and you rocked on your heels as you waited for them to hurry up. You turned back to Ushijima to see a handsome boy who looked around your age walking up to him.

“Ushiwaka, is that you?” the boy said, and Ushijima looked up.

“Oikawa,” he said with no emotion in his voice.

The other boy clenched his jaw. “At least act a little happier to see me, you ass. It’s been—what?—three years, yet you still seem the same, other than your height. I was so happy when I had my growth spurt because I thought I’d be taller than you, but you’re still taller than me, huh? Just shrink already!”

“I can’t do that.”

Oikawa rubbed his temples. “I know that! I was joking.” After releasing a sigh, Oikawa walked to the store’s windows and rubbed his chin as he stared at the mannequins in the window. “Do you think Iwa-chan would look good in this?” Oikawa said as he pointed at a red bra and panty set on a mannequin. Ushijima gave him a blank look, and Oikawa sighed and set the clothes down. “You’re right. I don’t think red is his color. Maybe turquoise would look better?”

“Did you need something from me?”

Oikawa tapped his chin in thought and shook his head. “No, but I haven’t seen you in a while, so I was wondering how you were doing. Who thought I would find you here at this type of store?” He peered around Ushijima’s back at the people in the store. “Are you waiting for someone, Ushiwaka? Your girlfriend maybe?”

As if on cue, the cashier finished ringing up your clothes, and you paid before walking up to Ushijima with the bag of clothes in your hand. You tilted your head to the side as you looked at the boy next to him. It wasn’t someone from your school.

You tensed when the boy stepped close to you and stared at you in silence. He clutched his head and crouched on the ground before he ruffled his hair, making you jump. “Ah, you’re annoying, aren’t you, Ushiwaka! How were you able to snag such a cute girl?” “To think, I, Oikawa Toru, lost to you is a travesty!”

Ushijima turned away from Oikawa. “Did you finish, pres?” Ushijima asked you, and you nodded. 

“Don’t ignore me!” 

Ushijima started walking off, and you followed behind him, but an arm blocked your way. You craned your neck to look up and see Oikawa peering down at you.

“Hey there, little lamb,” Oikawa said as he peered down at you, and you craned your neck to look up at him. “Why don’t you hang with me instead of him? I could show you a good time.”

“I thought you were buying a bra and panty set for Iwaizumi,” Ushijima said, and Oikawa flinched and dropped his arm from in front of you.

“That was another joke! Iwa-chan would murder me if I showed him that stuff!”

“I see. We’ll be going.” Ushijima started walking off again, and you bowed to Oikawa before following him. A hand grabbed your wrist, and you turned to see Oikawa looking at you.

“Ah, here you go, little lamb, just in case you want to have a good time.” Oikawa handed you a slip of paper and gave you a wink with a little salut before he went off towards another store. 

When you peered down at the paper, a printed phone number stared back at you with a small chibi drawing in the corner saying “call me anytime”. Your face scrunched in confusion.

“Does he just carry these around?” you wondered aloud, and the piece of paper left your hands as Ushijima grabbed it from you. 

“You won’t be needing this,” Ushijima said and threw it in the trash. You watched as the paper fluttered through the air before landing in the trash bin. As Oikawa’s phone number disappeared from your view, a sudden thought came to mind.

“Speaking of numbers,” you turned to him and gave him a soft smile, “can I have yours instead? It would be easier to text you whenever I want to get a hold of you than figuring out where you are,” you said and patted yourself on your back in your mind at how you were able to get the words out without fumbling or being an embarrassing mess. 

Ushijima nodded and brought out his phone. You typed in his phone number and sent him a quick text so he could save your number. You did a quick fist pump in the air when he looked away, proud of yourself for being able to get his phone number in a fairly discrete manner. As he pocketed his phone, you clutched your phone to your chest as a wide smile spread across your face. You wanted to hang out with him longer.

“Do you want to go get something to eat? It’s around lunch time anyway, and Sa—Tendou said Kuroo has enough food to last him the rest of today.”

“It would be better to travel on a full stomach than feint halfway,” was his strange response, but you ignored it and focused on the fact he said yes to you. With a large smile on your face, you grab his arm and drag him towards the nearest fast food restaurant or cafe for a quick bite, happiness coursing through your body as you imagined a long chat with him about nothing but random subjects.

He let himself be dragged by your petite body into a restaurant and into a short line while hunger settled into his stomach as he hadn’t eaten anything since his jog. After you both ordered, you forced him to let you pay since he had bought Kuroo’s food. He looked ready to counter, but you handed your card to the cashier who eyed you both with a bored expression. Once your food was finished, you two grabbed your trays and sat down at a table.

“I could have paid for the food, pres,” he said, and you shook your head.

“You bought all of Kuroo’s food. Plus, I still had plenty of money after buying my tights.” You took your spoon and scooped some ice cream up. The spoon disappeared into your mouth before reappearing as you held it in the air. “They were surprisingly not as expensive as I thought they’d be!” 

Ushijima hummed and stared out the window of the restaurant. His quiet demeanor seemed more so, and you wondered if he was uncomfortable. You cleared your throat, and he turned his attention towards you.

“I’m sorry for dragging you to this place. I didn’t ask you if there was anywhere you’d like to go.” You scooped another spoonful of ice cream into your mouth. “I just wanted to try this place out with someone since I’ve heard people at school talk about it.”

“It’s all right, pres. You should also eat your other food before your dessert. You’ll spoil your appetite,” he told you.

“If you say so, mother,” you said, playfully rolling your eyes as you set down your ice cream, picked up your sandwich, and took a bite. He nodded his head as you swallowed. After your single bite, you sat down your sandwich on your plate and looked him straight in the eye. “I just realized that you still call me pres instead of Sato.”

“Does it make you uncomfortable?” he asked you, and you hummed as you pushed yourself back in your seat.

“Not really. I’m just not used to it. Kinda makes it feel like there’s a barrier between us,” you said with an awkward chuckle as you smacked yourself in your head for saying those words.

Ushijima rested his head on his hand and stared back at you. “Do you not want there to be one?”

Your breath stopped as his words registered in your head. As your heart thrummed in your ears, you willed it to quiet down before he heard it. “Well, I was hoping we’d become friends, so the “barrier” makes it seem like I’m the only one wanting to be friends, if that makes any sense….”

“Sorry.”

You blink your eyes and look up at him in shock. You shake your head and hands to reassure him. “You don’t need to apologize!” Your eyes avoid his as you look at your lap and fidget in your seat. “I guess I was just being selfish and only doing what I wanted, so just tell me if you find me annoying and you won’t have to be bothered by me anymore.”

“Sato,” he said, and your head snapped up to look at him out of surprise. 

As your breathing became heavier and heavier, you held your face in your hands to hide the bright pink skin from his eyes. His suddenly saying your surname surprised you, and if he kept doing similar things, your heart wouldn’t be able to take it. 

“Sato doesn’t sound right though….” 

You tilted your head as he trailed off. His lips moved, but you couldn’t hear anything. The words coming from his mouth had to have been fake—something you wanted to hear—but you couldn’t help your heart from pounding in your chest, threatening to jump out.

“Y/N,” Ushijima said, and you plugged your nose, blew air through your nose, and then yawned to pop your ears to make sure you were hearing things correctly.

“I think Y/N sounds better than Sato.”

You stood up in your chair, the sound of utensils clacking as you did so, but you ignored it as your face flushed bright red and legs wobbled. “I-I’m going to the toilet!” you said and stumbled towards the toilets. “You better eat your soup!”

The door to the toilet closed behind you, and you leaned against it as a deep sigh left your body and took your soul with it. When Ushijima said your name, it felt like a sudden wave crashed over you and drowned you in the sound of his voice. His saying your name replayed over and over in your head, even as you stumbled to the sink and splashed cold water on your face.

“Okay, okay. Calm down, Y/N. This-this isn’t  _ that _ big of a deal!” 

_ Y/N _ , his voice said in your head, and you clutched your head.

“Nevermind. It is! He just said my name…. Who-who thought my name would sound that good coming from someone else.” Your body shook as shallow breaths entered and exited your tiny body. “I need to calm down and get out of here before Ushijima thinks I’ve ditched him.” After one last splash of water to the face, you took a deep breath and walked back towards Ushijima.

His tray was empty, and you looked at the one bite you took out of your sandwich. The thought of eating another bite sent your stomach whirling, and you knew you wouldn’t be able to keep it down, especially not with Ushijima’s voice still ringing in your head. You grabbed your tray and threw the food away, a feeling of regret seeping through your body.

“Did you not like it?” he asked.

“N-no. I just lost my appetite, like you said I would,” you said, half of your words not being a lie. “Can we take a walk through the park for a bit?” The last thing you wanted was for your time with Ushijima to end. You just hoped he wouldn’t reject your offer.

When he nodded, your heart soared, and you skipped forward towards the park while he walked behind you. The two of you walked around and talked with each other more, though you were speaking most of the time while he only hummed. You didn’t care about it one bit, since he hadn’t run away or told you you were annoying him yet. As the sun started to sink in the sky and paint it a mix of pinks and oranges, you suggested the two of you go to Satori’s now to deliver the cat food, and he nodded. You led him to your friend’s house, and the familiar building grabbed your attention.

You opened the door to Satori’s house with the spare key under his doormat, which reminded you that you should scold Satori for putting it in such an obvious place. If he got robbed, it would be his own fault, you thought, but delivering Kuroo’s food came first. Ushijima entered the house, and Satori’s head poked out from the kitchen at the noises from his house’s entrance. 

“Ah, thank you so much!” Satori said as he ran towards you two, launched himself at Ushijima, and engulfed him in his skinny arms. “I knew I could count on you!”

“You know that’s not me, Satori-chan, right?” you asked, and he pulled himself away from Ushijima to look him in the face.

“Whoa, no shit! I was wondering when you got so tall and muscular!” You thought he was joking until he rolled his eyes at you and stuck out his tongue. “Of course I knew it wasn’t you, you shortie.”

You slipped your clothing bag off of your shoulder to prepare yourself to charge at his thin body to snap him in half, but when Ushijima looked down at you with a slight tilt of his head, you found your fake anger dissipating almost as soon as it had come. You couldn’t show him your unflattering side, aka the you who wouldn’t hesitate to kill Satori for calling you a nickname. Satori pulled his lower eyelid down and stuck his tongue out at you before he disappeared into his kitchen, and you knew you’d get him back for this. 

“That’s right!” Satori’s voice came from the kitchen, and his red hair popped out around the corner, followed by his face. “My mom made some food for me to eat this weekend, but it’s too much. Since it’s close to dinner time, do you want some so that I don’t explode?”

“It’s getting late. I believe I should be heading back soon,” Ushijima said, and your face fell as he bowed to Satori and walked towards the door.

“It’s hayashi rice,” your friend said, and the boy paused at the door. 

You could practically hear his body creaking as he turned around and looked towards Satori’s kitchen. “Well, I guess it would be a waste if you couldn’t finish it all.”

Satori smiled and clapped his hands, sending a wink towards you, and you made a mental note to learn how to make hayashi rice in the future. As you three sat down at your friend’s table, Kuroo rubbed himself against Ushijima’s leg, and Satori opened his cat food for him. While Kuroo gobbled down his cat food, you, Satori, and Ushijima dug into the food after praying. You watched Ushijima eat, and though his face was still as expressionless as ever, you still caught the little happy glint in his eyes as he took his time and savored his food. Maybe one day the happiness in his eyes would reach the rest of his face. You just hoped you’d be able to see it first.


	6. a new side

Once the weekend came to a close and school started back up, the whole building bustled as students rushed to practice for the sports festival happening on Friday, the final day before summer break. Though you weren’t bad at sports, you much rather preferred to watch on the sidelines and cheer for your classmates, so you decided you’d just play a quick game of soccer and watch the rest of the game. 

Mr. Hirota stood in the front of the class, and the bell rang, signalling the start of his class. As he told everyone to grab their textbooks and open them up, the classroom door opened with a loud slam as it slid against the frame. The classroom went silent as they looked at a girl standing there who looked unfamiliar. You realized it was Takagi Sara, the girl who stopped coming to school just before your class changed seats.

“How nice to finally see you again, Takagi-san,” Mr. Hirota said, sarcasm dripping from his words. The girl gave him an annoyed look of disgust as she walked into the classroom, and Mr. Hirota leaned over in his chair and looked at her with a smug look on his face. “Since you missed a few weeks of school, I guess that means you weren’t here when we changed seats, huh?” When the girl gave him a death glare, he pointed to a seat in the back. “You sit in front of Sato-san. Don’t cause any trouble now.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Kousuke,” the girl said as she sashayed her way towards the seat in front of you. 

“That’s Mr. Hirota to you, you brat!” 

Takagi plopped down in her chair and splayed herself across it. “Yeah, yeah. Just teach us English or whatever it is you do.” She waved a dismissive hand at Mr. Hirota, who clenched his jaw at her behavior. 

Since she had missed over a month of school, the new material would confuse her and have her feel left out, and the thought of that made your gut wrench. You leaned forward in your chair and tapped her shoulder. When she looked back at you, you gave a soft smile. “If you need help understanding anything, I’ll be glad to help you. You can even copy my notes if you want,” you offered.

She gave a quick side smile at you. “Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t need your help to pass this class.”

“Aw, look at Sara-chan being independent,” Satori said, face resting in his hands as he tilted his head to look at her.

“Shaddup, you!” She kicked at him, and he snickered as he moved his legs out of her reach. Her foot continued to try to reach for him until she gave up, and Satori stuck his tongue out at her before his face lit up with an idea.

“Ooh, you two should call her Sara as well. She hates it so much that it almost makes her look cute when she gets mad.”

“Do you exist solely to torment me, huh, monster?”

“Sara-chan, it’s not nice to insult people,” he said, and she glared at him, to which he only gave her a shit-eating grin.

“I think Sara is a cute name, though, Sara-chan,” you told her, and she leaned away from you, her cheeks a bright pink.

“Another thing: she hates compliments because she can’t take them well,” Satori said, and she hid her head on her desk.

“Stop exposing me like that. We’re not that close, asshole,” she said as she pouted and glared at him.

“Sara,” Ushijima said, and she looked at him with confusion.

“Who are you again?”

“Sara-chan, how ruthless! He’s the one and only Ushijima Wakatoshi who rivals you in rumors. How have you not heard of him when he’s in the same class?” 

“I’ve been gone for over a month! How would I be able to remember everyone’s name?”

“If you keep talking like that, you’ll be called on,” Ushijima said, and the three of you fell silent and looked towards the front to see Mr. Hirota glaring daggers at your corner, the English writing on the board long forgotten. You bowed to him in apology, which he rolled his eyes at and resumed teaching.

The rest of the week leading up to Friday was spent practicing soccer during lunch with the girls in your class and Sara, who became close to you ever since she came back. Though her words usually came out with a sharp tone, you knew she didn’t mean them that way, and your understanding let her relax around you. You talked to other girls in your class, but none of them talked to you as much as Sara did, and having a close female friend made you happy as you had someone to talk about the little things with.

Before you knew it, Friday came up, and the school’s atmosphere became playful and carefree, though a few students seeped with seriousness and fiery passion. You had been on the sports festival committee, and sitting through all the meetings drained a lot out of you, and practicing to make sure you could kick the ball well didn’t help. Your body trembled with anticipation as you waited for your soccer game against the other classes, and you envied your friends when they stayed unfazed while you worried. After your soccer game, you’d go watch the girls’ volleyball to cheer on your classmates until Satori and the boys began their volleyball game. 

The school gathered outside on the soccer field as the principal stood underneath a tent at a pedestal, microphone pointed at his mouth. He made a speech before the student council president did the same, and before you could fall asleep, the stretching began, and everyone separated into their classes. You took deep breaths as your class readied themselves for your soccer game, and Sara walked up next to you.

“Good luck, Y/N!” 

You nodded, and the soccer game started. To be honest, it passed in a blur for you as Sara ran around the field in a flash, making goal after goal before anyone had a chance to steal the ball from her, so each game finished faster than  _ anyone _ expected. As you bent over, hands on your knees as you tried to catch your breath, Sara cackled as she kicked the ball and slammed it into the goal, the other team frozen as it zipped past them and threatened to knock them unconscious if they dared stop it. She was a monster when playing, much like a red haired friend you knew.

“I did it!” she screamed once the referee blew the whistle to signal the end of the match, with your class as the winner, and all the other girls panted as they watched her dance around on the field.

“How is she still so energetic?” you said aloud, and the girls within your vicinity grunted in approval with your statement. 

As you panted, your vision went in and out of focus, and you clenched your jaw as a cramp stabbed your lower stomach. Curse your period for choosing today of all days to rear its ugly head. Something cool touched your cheek, and you looked up to see Ushijima holding a bottle of cool water out to you while Satori ran around, trying to keep Sara from rubbing the loss into the other teams face before she got smacked. 

“Th-thanks.” Your hand grabbed the water from Ushijima’s hand, and he nodded as you twisted the cap off and guzzled down the cool liquid. A content sigh escaped your lips as the water trickled past your lips and quenched the heat coursing through your body. 

Satori had managed to grab Sara in his arms and pull her back towards you and Ushijima, though she kicked her legs in the air and tried to bite his hands as he did so, complaining that she deserved the right to rub it into the face of the other team for sucking so bad. You cringed at her words and the disgusted faces of the other classes as they watched her struggle. 

“Go cool off somewhere, Sara-chan. Your behavior is aggravating,” Satori said once they reached you, and she stopped moving to look up at him with a glare.

“If you hate it so much, don’t talk to me. Any of you!” she said, her words venom as she spat them at you and Ushijima. She ripped herself out of Satori’s arms before she stormed inside the school and out of your sight. 

You watched her back disappear from view and turned to look at Satori, who rubbed the bridge of his nose. He wanted to run after her, but she needed to be alone and realize how her attitude was affecting others. Instead of dashing into school to talk to her, he turned to look at you and Ushijima.

“Let’s go to the gym to watch the girls volleyball, okay?” he said, though his words seemed devoid of energy.

It seemed Sara’s attitude sucked the joy out of his tone, but you didn’t argue with him or bring it up. If he needed a distraction, then the girls volleyball game would be perfect. You entered the gym and sat in the front row of the bleachers while the teachers set up the net and the girls stretched and brought out the balls. Ushijima sat next to you, Satori next to him, and you froze when your shoulder brushed against his, but before you could focus on it too much, the whistle blew, and the game started.

The girls worked hard in their game, but you couldn’t focus on them as you felt the heat radiating off Ushijima’s body next to you. All of a sudden, you became hyper-aware of how close he was to you, and that thought made your heart rate pick up and breath become shallow. Just like your soccer match, the volleyball match for the girls finished in an instant, and it was time for the boys to play. You shook your head, hoping you’d be able to focus this time. A group of three boys in your class stood off to the side of the court, worried looks on their faces as they looked around the gym, and their faces lit up when they caught sight of Ushijima and Satori. They walked to the bottom of the bleachers and stopped in front of you and your two friends.

“Ushiwaka!” Seikguchi said, and Ushijima looked up at him and the other boys in your class.

“Ushiwaka?” you asked, wondering why that name sounded familiar before realizing you heard Oikawa call him the same name, and Satori mouthed the name with great interest from beside Ushijima.

Sekiguchi nodded. “I heard someone call Ushijima that when I was out. Should I not call you that?” he asked Ushijima, who just shook his head. 

“Call me whatever you wish.”  
Sekiguchi smiled. “Well, I was wondering if you and Satori would be able to play the volleyball game with us? Aito, Fumihiro, and Reiji got sick yesterday and couldn’t make it today. We have no other boys in our class but you two! We’ll be one short, but that’s better than being three short, right?”

Without hesitation, Ushijima nodded. “All right.”

Sekiguchi’s face lit up, and he bowed in thanks before he and the other two boys with him cheered.

“Look at you, Ushiwaka-kun!” Satori said as he slapped Ushijima on the back, who didn’t budge. “Didn’t take you for someone who played volleyball, but your body had to come from somewhere!”

“Yes.”

“That’s all you have to say?” Satori let out a loud cackle and tipped his head back as he continued to slap Ushijima’s back. His hand froze as his eyes caught sight of a familiar person. “Is that your buddy Shirabu-kun that you mentioned before, Ushijima-kun?”

“Seems so.”

“We’re still down one guy, so why don’t you call him over?” Satori said.

“He’s a grade below us.”

Satori shrugged. “So? It’s not like they’d care! We’re down one guy, so we could use as much help as possible. Plus, it doesn’t look like he’s doing anything right now. You said he’s a setter, and none of us play that position.”

The boy they were talking about felt eyes fixated on his body, and he turned to see the group of boys staring at him, a familiar face in the group. “Ushijima-san, is that you?” he asked as he walked closer. When he received a nod, the boy pursed his lips to conceal a smile and nodded as well, though you could see the twinkle in his eyes as he glanced at Ushijima.

“Hey, you’re Shirabu, right?” Satori asked, and the boy nodded. A smile spread across your friend’s face at the gesture. “Great! Do you feel up to joining us for our match of volleyball? We only have five players.”

“I’m in a different grade, though.”

Satori slung his arms around the boy’s shoulders and pulled him towards the group of boys. “Doesn’t matter! We can always lie if they get suspicious! C’mon, help your senpai out here! We really need it!” He clapped his hands together in front of his face, and Shirabu agreed, which made him jump around in excitement and the other boys let out a sigh of relief.

“Now we have a setter! Time to get on the court and show them what we’re made of!” Satori skipped onto the court, face carefree as he did so, and you wondered how he could change his mood so quickly. 

The newly formed group walked onto the court, the other team doing the same. As Sekiguchi bounced the ball on the ground to prepare for his serve, Ushijima stood near the net with Shirabu and Satori. A boy on the other net with spiky brown hair blinked in confusion as he looked at Ushijima before his mouth settled into a smirk.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Ushijima-kun?” a boy on the other team said to him, and Ushijima nodded.

“It has, Yamagata.”

“Thought you quit playing volleyball after that happened.” 

“I’m only doing this because I was asked to,” was Ushijima’s response, and Yamagata blew air through his nose.

“Ohira would be happy to hear about this,” he told the boy, who hummed.

“If you say so.”

Before Yamagata could respond, the whistle blew, and Ushijima’s eyes turned sharp as he held his hands up, ready to jump in the air to block any ball threatening to pass over the net. 

While you watched Ushijima play, your heart picked up as you saw his serious side. He’d block any ball coming over the net with a tall jump that left you breathless at how  _ easy _ he made it seem, and his face showed determination, a new look on his usual expressionless face. The face once blank and unrevealing of anything showed you just how into the game he was, even if it was just for the sports festival.

The seriousness in his expression left you biting your lips at how attractive he looked, and you slapped your face to rid yourself of the thoughts creeping into your mind. As you saw him receive the ball and send it spiralling in an arch over the net, a person plopped down next to you. When you turned your head, the side of Sara’s face greeted you, a blush covering her face. The two of you sat in silence until she spoke.

“Sorry for acting mean to you and the other girls after the soccer game. Just know that just because I talk rudely to you doesn’t mean I hate you,” Sara said as she fiddled with the end of her shorts.

“Are you a tsundere?” you asked her, not expecting the sudden apology, and her face flushed.

“N-no! I just have a hard time expressing my true feelings!”

“Oh, okay.” You turned your attention back to the court where Satori stood, volleyball in hand as he prepared to serve. “Are you here to watch Satori play?”

“No! I-I’m not!” Sara objected, the tips of her ears burning red. She turned her attention towards the court to look at Satori, who threw the ball up. 

The volleyball soared into the air and Satori ran towards it before he jumped in the air and slammed it down with his hand on the opposite side of the court. The other team managed to receive it and sent it back towards their class and right towards Ushijima’s waiting arms. 

Sara looked back at you to see your eyes twinkling as you watched Ushijima, the ball slamming into his forearms before sailing up towards the net. “Are you watching Wakatoshi?” she asked.

You nodded your head, a smile on your face as you watched Shirabu set the ball while Ushijima ran up, face set in determination as he spiked it to the gym floor on the other side of the net so hard it made a loud slamming sound before spiraling towards the ceiling. Silence spread through the gym as they watched the volleyball slam into the ceiling and fall back down, bouncing a few times before it sat still. Your class cheered, but you couldn’t join them as your smile disappeared the moment a flash of pain stabbed into your lower stomach and made you double over in pain. Sara scooted closer to you and placed a hand on your shoulder.

“Hey, are you all right?” she asked, her voice full of worry.

“Y-yeah….” you lied, though it felt like someone twisted a knife into your stomach, and you curled up in pain. 

“Lying won’t help anything. Stay right there while I get Wakatoshi for you.” She stood up and dusted her pants off before she started off towards Ushijima on the court.

“H-huh? You-you don’t have to!” You grabbed her wrist to keep her from moving towards Ushijima and shook your head when she looked back at you. “I’ll be fine!”

“Hmm…. I don’t believe you.” Your hand fell from her wrist as she shook it off and walked towards the sidelines. She looked back at you one last time and said, “Take the chance I give you, or else I won’t be so nice in the future.”

“Fine! Let me pay you back in the future then! I’ll give you a chance with Satori-chan some time soon,” you said, hands cupped around your mouth, and she tensed up.

“I don’t want that!” she yelled at you, and you chuckled until another flash of pain hit you followed by a feeling of nausea. 

Her eyes widened at your body curled in pain, and she rushed to the sidelines to try her best to grab Ushijima’s attention. He dragged his eyes from the team on the other side of the net as Shirabu stood up to serve to look at her,

“I’ll play in his place!” Sara shouted, and Sekiguchi rolled his eyes.

“Get out of here! You’re not a boy, and you’ve never played volleyball before,” the boy said, and she glared at him. 

As Ushijima walked off the court, she jumped in before anyone else could complain, and Satori snickered as her face scrunched up in concentration. Shirabu rolled his eyes and served the ball before Sara jumped up and spiked it down. You couldn’t see what happened afterwards as your ears rang and vision became more blurry. Your period wasn’t usually this bad, but it just wanted to fuck with you today. A pair of shoes showed up in your vision, and you looked up to see Ushijima standing in front of you. 

His lips moved, but you couldn’t hear anything. After he realized his words weren’t getting through to you, he held out a hand for you, and you settled yours in his. He pulled you up against him before he wrapped an arm around your shoulders and led you out of the gym. While walking, you stumbled and crumpled to the floor as your legs gave out under you. As a ripple of pain seared through your stomach, you let out a shaky breath. Without a word, Ushijima bent down, slid his arm under your legs, and lifted you into his arms in a princess carry. You wanted to cherish the feeling of his strong arms securing you tightly against his body, but the pain blocked out any other feeling, and you had made it to the nurse’s office. 

Ushijima sat you down on a bed and talked to someone before the door shut, and he turned back to you. He handed you a glass of water and a tablet, saying the nurse said to take them before she left, and you threw the pill into your mouth before chugging the water. Once the glass emptied all its contents, you plopped down onto the infirmary bed. 

“Are you all right?” Ushijima asked, and you gave him a slow nod as more nausea settled in. “If you’re in pain, you shouldn’t force yourself to do things. You looked pained during the soccer match and while we were playing volleyball.” 

“I’m fine…” You let out a sharp exhale that turned into a broken sob as you curled up in the searing pain from your lower half. 

A warm hand placed itself on your shoulder and rubbed soothing circles on it while the pain dissipated and allowed you to lay back down. The sound of a wrapper crumpling grabbed your attention, and you looked to the side to see Ushijima opening a chocolate bar. Saliva filled your mouth as you looked at the dark brown goodness that was the chocolate bar, and desire filled you as you imagined biting into it and tasting the rich sweetness as it coated your tongue. It would help with your cramps too.

“Don’t lie.” 

You nodded your head, too focused on the chocolate bar in his hands. He pulled the wrapped down and exposed the chocolate more to your eyes, and you licked your lips in anticipation for the food. The chocolate came close to your mouth, and you looked at Ushijima in confusion.

“I’ll feed it to you. Take a bite.”

Your breath stopped in your chest at his words, not expecting him to feed you, but you weren’t complaining. You sat up and opened your mouth to take a bite. Your mouth moved closer to the bar as if you were unsure if you should take a bite, and Ushijima kept his eyes focused on you. Just as you were about to bite down on the bar, the door to the infirmary opened to reveal a tall boy with a black bowl cut standing there. Ushijima turned to look at him, and the boy stood straighter, face flushed.

“U-Ushijima-senpai! I’m G-Goshiki Tsutomu, and I just w-wanted to say that I watched you while you w-were playing volleyball, and I look up to you a lot! I hope I c-can be as good as you one day!” the black bowl-cut boy said, and you stared at him with your mouth open in confusion at his sudden confession. 

_ Why’d he have to barge into the infirmary to tell Ushijima that? _ you wondered, but Ushijima just hummed.

“I’ll be looking forward to that day,” he said, and Goshiki bowed with a proud look on his face as if he’d just received a compliment. The tone of Ushijima’s voice didn’t make his words sound like a compliment though, but you weren’t going to crush the boy’s dreams. As the boy skipped out, you crossed your arms and fell back on the bed. Ushijima was just about to feed you, but that boy ruined it. You pulled the chocolate out of his hand and bit into it with a scowl on your face, and he watched you chomp on the bar. 

The door to the infirmary opened, and a boy with ash blond hair watched Goshiki from a corner as the boy skipped out of the room. “That stupid Goshiki! Can’t he do what he’s told to do?” a boy said as he stomped away in the opposite direction of Goshiki. 

Satori watched the boy mumble to himself, and a look of interest plastered itself on his face. What an interesting development this was.


	7. study sesh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: NSFW scene ahead

Cicadas buzzed in the sweltering heat of late July, and sweat dripped down your back as you walked towards Ushijima’s house. Since summer officially started, the teachers offered summer school for those who needed it and homework for others. You didn’t want to be caught in school for longer than you needed to, so you chose the latter. Everything would have been fine had the math homework not screwed you over. No matter how much you listened to Mrs. Yoshino explain statistics and equations, the information never stuck in your brain. In an act of desperation to make sure you passed her class, you texted Ushijima for help, and he, being your new guardian angel, offered to help you study.

So that’s why you stood outside his apartment, contemplating your life decisions as you realized you’d be _alone_ with him in his _house_. Before you got cold feet, you forced your legs up the stairs towards his apartment number, and you stopped when you reached apartment 602. With a tentative knock, you waited for the door to open so that your heart wouldn’t burst out of your chest. The door cracked open, and a familiar olive brown eye looked down at you. You gave a slight wave as you clutched your math notebook and assignments in your other. 

You heard the sound of the lock clicking, and the door opened wide to reveal the entrance way of Ushijima’s house. After taking a deep breath to mentally prepare yourself, you stepped inside and took off your shoes. He walked further into his house, and you followed him until it opened up into his living room. A modern style with white walls and dark furniture greeted you, and when you turned to the side, the kitchen stared at you. Ushijima saw your eyes focused on his kitchen, and he walked over to his silver fridge.

“Do you want anything to drink before we start?” he asked, and even though you wanted to say yes, you didn’t want to take anything from him without giving him anything in return, so you shook your head. He grabbed two water bottles out his fridge regardless and held them both in one hand, and for the first time, you realized just how large his hands were. You wondered what else was large about—no! You came here to study, not imagine fake scenarios between you and Ushijima your horny brain came up with.

You and Ushijima walked into his room, where a little wooden table sat next to his bed, an open notebook and pencil resting on top. As Ushijima sat down next to it and placed the waters on the floor next to it, you suppressed a giggle at how large his body looked compared to the table, plopped down next to him, and placed your notebook and assignments on the table. You slipped the blue backpack off your back and placed it at the foot of his bed, his eyes glancing at it. 

“I brought the math textbook and my pencil case just in case,” you said, and he nodded before pulling out his own math textbook and pencil case. You let out a deep exhale when you realized you lugged the heavy textbook around for nothing. 

“Did you do the assignments from the first week of summer break?” he asked, and you gave him a hesitant nod as you handed him a small stack of papers. His hand grabbed them and tried to take them from you, but you kept your tight grip on them. It became a mini game of tug of war as he wrestled them out of your hands, and a shaky sigh left your lips. You fidgeted as he sifted through them.

He peered at you from over the papers, eyes showing a hint of disappointment that made your heart clench. You had gotten almost every answer wrong on the paper, save for the few multiple choice ones. With a pencil, he crossed out the numbers of the ones you got incorrect light enough for it to be erased and sat the papers down in front of you.

“You’re the class president, Y/N. What will you do if someone is struggling in math and needs your help?” he asked you, and your face burned, the sternness in his voice making your walls clench.

“I don’t know! It’s not my fault math is hard,” you whined at him.

“You’re in the science department.”

“Sh-shut up and help me,” you said as no comeback came to your mind. He scooted closer to you and grabbed an assignment to go over with you. As he came closer, your nose picked up the smell of his cologne—a scent of musk mixed with cinnamon and a hint of lavender. The cinnamon and lavender combo, while unexpected, left your body relaxing as the scent wrapped you up in a cocoon. The musk, on the other hand, reminded you that he was the boy you kept thinking thoughts of that you shouldn’t be thinking at all as it invaded your senses and made your brain a muddle mess with how rich it smelled. 

He leaned over the table while he explained the steps to solve the equation, and his arm brushed against yours, sending electricity buzzing up your arm and making you flinch at the touch. His eyes looked at you out of concern, and you gave him an awkward smile before looking down at the paper to see what he was talking about. As he talked, you nodded your head to make him believe you were listening, but your mind was elsewhere.

With how close he was, you became aware of just how you were dressed. A thin, white, buttonless blouse paired with a pair of short ripped jeans and thigh highs to keep your legs adorned your body and didn’t leave much up to the imagination as sweat made the shirt see through. Your clothing mixed with the scent of his cologne made your mind concoct images that left your—ehem— _nether regions_ clenching. 

Ushijima must have noticed your lack of attention, and a large, warm hand touched the bare skin exposed between your thigh highs and shorts. The touch made your body freeze, and when the pad of his thumb began rubbing circles on your upper thigh, your breathing stopped in your chest as your heart beat so loud you hoped he wouldn’t be able to hear it. Wide eyes focused on the table in front of you, and he leaned closer to you to whisper in your ear.

“What’s wrong, baby?” he said, his hot breath fanning against your ear. 

You couldn’t speak, let alone look him in the eyes, and the way the pet name dripped from his mouth, smooth and sweet like honey, didn’t help the thumping in your chest. The tips of his fingers grazed the inside of your thighs, and you instinctively spread them apart. His teeth tugged at his bottom lip as he slid his hand closer to your pussy. Now, your breathing came out in shallow puffs as his hand crept up your inner thigh towards your wet heat. 

“I asked you a question, Y/N,” he said, his gravelly voice in your ear sending pleasure shooting straight down to your core. 

Instead of answering, you spread your legs enough for his hand to fit between them and perfectly cup your pussy, and he let out a soft groan at how compliant you were being. A finger ran up and down your clothed slit, and your eyes closed at the friction. You could feel your panties soaking as he applied a slight pressure and pushed your clothes against your entrance, and the feeling made you let out a gasp. 

His lips connected with your exposed neck, and he slid his hand up your stomach before he slipped it inside your shorts and panties. A choked gasp slipped past your red lips as a calloused finger reached your clit and rubbed slow circles on it. You had touched yourself a few times when you were really feeling it, but it had never felt like _this_. He knew when to speed up his rubbing and when to slow it down to keep you from getting too into it, and you couldn’t stop the irritated whine from leaving your mouth. 

“P-Please touch me…. I-I can’t concentrate because I want your cock in me. Please!” you babbled, the words spilling from your lips before you can hold them back. He had just started touching you, but you wanted more. You _needed_ more.

Ushijima hummed against the skin of your neck, a deep vibrating sound that was completely different from his usual disinterested hums. This one told you he was listening and taking into consideration your words and whether or not he wanted to give you what you wanted. As you circled your hips, hoping to get more friction of his finger that stopped moving against your clit, he retracted his hand and pulled away from you. You let out a needy whine at the absence of his body near yours, but it didn’t last long when he picked you up and threw you on the bed. 

When you landed on the bed, a startled gasp pushed through your lips before he clambered on top of you and pinned you to the bed. You looked at him through hooded lids as he held you hands above you with one hand, the other ghosting over the dip in your waist. His hand slid up and bumped against the underside of your breast, and you couldn’t hold back the shaky whimper. 

“Do you want me to touch you there, you whore? Want my hands to grope you while you become a moaning mess in my hands?” he growled, and you nodded. A quick slap to your thigh sent you hissing in pain, though a wave of pleasure rippled through you as he rubbed the spot he hit. “Use your words, slut.”

“Y-Yes! Please touch me, Daddy. Mark me up and let everyone know I’m yours. Do whatever you want to me!” You surprised yourself with your own words, but when a fire seemed to light in his eyes, you bit your lips. From the look on his face, you knew he’d do exactly what you told him to do, and you couldn’t wait.

His hand pushed your shirt up to expose your bra, and his tongue poked out to swipe across his bottom lip at the sight. “Bite,” he ordered, and you took the end of your shirt between your teeth as he slid a hand across your stomach to grope the bottom of your breast, the bra riding up your chest and exposing your tits to his hungry eyes. As his hand squeezed your breast, he dipped his head down to lick a strip across the crest of it, relishing in the shuddering intake of breath from you.

His eyes bore right into yours as he moved lower, took your hard bud between his teeth, and gave it a soft tug. Your back arched at the sensation as pain mixed with pleasure spread through your chest and made you more wet. To gauge more of your reactions, he swirled his tongue around your nipple, and the shirt fell from your mouth as you opened it into a silent moan. 

The hand around your wrists disappeared, and you missed the tight grip restraining you to the bed, but before you could vocalize your desire, Ushijima grabbed the bottom of your shirt and pulled it over your head before laying you back on the bed. You looked at him with hazy eyes as you waited for him to continue, and he tilted his head to the side and mashed his lips against yours, a hand cupping your cheek. As his tongue entered your mouth and swirled around, a single hand reached around your back to grab at your bra clasp. Cold air hit your breasts, and your nipples hardened instantly as he unhooked your bra and yanked it off you. A hand snaked up your side and kneaded your breast as his tongue tangled with yours.

Your lungs screamed for air, and you had to pull away, a string of saliva following as you did so before it broke. His chest heaved as he stared at you, dazed and fucked up just from him kissing you and fondling you. His t-shirt stuck to his body, and you salivated as you could make out each individual ab on his stomach. You tugged at the hem of his shirt, and without a word, he complied with your request and slipped his shirt off. At the sight of his rippling muscles shimmering in the light from the sheen of sweat coating his body, you bit your lips to keep from purring. You sat up and pushed him down onto the bed, wanting to mount him. 

Once you straddled him, you bent down and licked a strip up his stomach, the shuddering breaths from his mouth turning you more painfully on than you already were. When you reached his neck, you peppered kisses all over it before touching your lips against his. You tried to pull away from the kiss, but he grabbed the back of your head to push your lips back together. Again, his tongue entered your mouth, and you couldn’t stop yourself from grinding your clothed entrance on his hard cock still restrained by his shorts. His lips muffled a needy moan from you, and you were getting impatient.

“D-Daddy… Please, fuck me! I need your cock in me, filling me to the rim until I’m about to burst. I-I can’t wait any longer!” 

At your whiny begging, he let out a strained growl as he switched your positions until you were underneath him again. His mouth latched back onto your tits as his hands worked to slip you free of your shorts and panties. You lifted your hips to help him, and your clothes slipped off with ease, leaving you naked except for your thigh highs. You grabbed your stockings to pull them off, but Ushijima stopped you.

“Leave those on. It would make you look like such a cute little slut for me while I fuck you.”

You nodded, and he trailed kisses down from your tits to your clit. He ghosted his lips over it, which left you mewling at the sensation. You grinded your hips in the air, hoping to feel his lips against your pussy again. His fingers dug into your hips as he forced you back onto the mattress. 

“Don’t get greedy, whore.”

“Wanna feel your lips on me, Daddy!”

In response, his fingers pulled your lips apart, and his tongue lapped at your wet entrance. At the feeling of his wet tongue on your needy pussy, you pushed your hips into the air as staccato gasps left your lips, the pleasure overwhelming your senses. He’d lick a strip up your slit before he’d swirl his tongue around your clit and lightly suck at it before going back down to your hole. You pushed your pussy towards his face as you wanted his tongue inside you, and filthy mew escaped your abused lips as he obliged and pushed his tongue into you. Your eyes rolled back, and you arched your back as he continued to push his tongue deeper inside. A strange burning spread through your pussy, and your legs shook. Your hands grabbed at his hair to pull him away from your hole, but he didn’t budge.

“G… Gonna cum!”

The pace of his tongue sped up, and one hand rubbed at your clit while the other groped your ass. Your mouth fell open into a large ‘O’ as the heat spread throughout your whole body and sent you spasming, stars popping up in your vision as you came down from your orgasm. You laid limp on the bed as heavy breaths pushed out of your fatigued body.

“Don’t fall asleep on me yet, slut. We haven’t even made it to the main event yet,” Ushijima said, and a finger entered your sensitive opening before you could react. 

A high-pitched, broken cry pushed from your lips as he curled his finger against your sensitive walls, your body still not recovered from your orgasm. He added a second digit inside you, and you whined as your entrance stretched. 

“Look at your pretty pussy sucking my fingers in like a little slut. So needy,” he ground out as you clenched around his large fingers inside you. He groaned at the feeling of your warm walls, and all too soon, he slid his fingers out of you. You whined at the sudden absence, and you clenched around nothing. 

Ushijima slid his shorts and boxers off, his erect cock springing free from its confines. You gulped at his size, wondering if it would even fit inside you, but your entrance didn’t care as it became more wet and clenched harder. Precum dripped from the angry red tip of his dick, and you salivated. It twitched at the sight of your messy hair, dripping entrance, and stockings squeezing your thighs, the large vein standing out to your eyes. You wanted it in your mouth.

“L-Lemme suck your cock. Need it in my mouth, Daddy,” you begged.

“As much as I’d love that, I don’t think I can wait any longer to fuck you.”

At his words, you moaned as you imagined his large dick in you, fucking you hard into the bed. He spread your thighs apart and slid in between them, his tip lined up with your sopping entrance. He rolled a condom onto his hard cock and warned you before he began sliding his length into you. You squeezed your eyes shut and bit your lip to hide your pained cry as burning pain shot through your lower half. 

“Bare with it, baby. You can do it. Almost there.”

You wanted to believe him, but when you opened your eyes and looked down at him, his tip was the only part inside you. No matter how wet you were or how much lube was used, it still felt like you were being torn to shreds down there. A hushed cry managed to escape your lips, and Ushijima leaned over you to connect his lips with yours to distract you from the searing pain. You kissed back and cupped his jaw as he pushed deeper inside, and you bit his lip on accident out of pain. He hissed in pain as your teeth pierced his lips, but he ignored it as your pain was worse. The lightheadedness you felt from the lack of air distracted you from the pain, and when Ushijima tried to pull away from you, you kept his head steady until all of him slid inside your entrance. A satisfied purr rumbled your chest as his dick filled you to the brim. 

“So fucking full! You make me feel so fucking full, Daddy!” While searing pain still persisted, the feeling of his cock fully inside you overpowered it, and you wanted him to move now. 

“Just… Just wait a bit, baby. You need to adjust a bit more before I move,” Ushijima told you when you vocalized your desires, and you sighed at his response. 

Instead of waiting for you to adjust to his size, you wrapped your legs around his waist, the stockings rubbing against the skin of his back, and ground down against his cock. The veins in his neck popped as he held in a throaty groan. 

“Don’t do that…”

“Why not, Daddy? Doesn’t it feel good?” you ask him with as sweet of a tone as you could muster, the pain still shooting through you when you moved.

“Because I won’t be able to hold back if you keep moving like that,” he growled, and your core shook at the harsh rasp in his voice.

“Who said I wanted you to hold back?” you taunted as you sat up and cupped his cheek, a sly smile on your face, and he snapped.

He slammed himself into you without warning, a startled yelp escaping you, and you wrapped your arms around his neck as you bounced up and down in his lap, each thrust hitting you right where you needed it the most. His hands grabbed your ass and pressed hard into the flesh, bruises sure to form once you two were finished. His pace sped up and became more sporadic, and when his dick twitched inside you, you knew he was close. He sucked on your tits, and the burning heat came back, reminding you that you were close too. His groans mixed with your moans that increased in pitch as the both of you came closer and closer to your high.

“Fuck, Y/N!” he groaned out against your skin, and your eyes rolled back as he released inside you, filling you up with his warm cum. The feeling of his thick cum inside you was enough to send you over the edge, and before he could pull out, your body spasmed, your walls clenching around his cock as you trapped him inside as you sucked out every last drop from him. 

“YN… Y/N…” he called to you, but you couldn’t see through your cloudy vision. A figure appeared above you, but you didn’t know who it was. “Y/N!” Ushijima’s voice said, and all at once, your eyes opened to reveal you Ushijima leaning over you with a worried expression on his face, and you realized you were still in his room, except you were fully clothed, and so was he. 

“Are you feeling all right?” he asked, and you blinked as you processed what was happening. “You fell asleep at the table, so I moved you to my bed. You kept tossing and turning and talking in your sleep. Do you need water?” 

With eyes as wide as saucers, you sat up on his bed, cringing when you felt the wetness between your legs. A dream…. You just had a _sex dream_ about Ushijima… in his _own home_. 

To keep him from worrying, you slid off the bed and sat down next to him, though the squelching of your pussy made you flinch every movement you made. You hoped what you said in your dream wasn’t what you said out loud. Oh, God, if he heard the words you were saying, you would jump out of the nearest window and live in the mountains.

“N-No, I’m fine. I’m sorry for falling asleep when you were trying to teach me. Where-where were we?” you asked as you picked up your pencil and looked at your paper in front of you.

His eyes stared at you, and you took shallow breaths as your body heated up under his gaze. Every time he blinked at you, you flinched, afraid he knew what impure thoughts you were having about him. You tried to focus on the work in front of you, but the throbbing in your core and chest as well as the slickness between your legs occupied your mind instead, and Ushijima sighed when he noticed you couldn’t concentrate.

“How about we take a break?” he said as he stood up, and you looked up at him, surprised by his sudden speaking. “We can eat a quick lunch and go outside for a bit. Want to toss around a volleyball?”

Though you didn’t want to admit it, you were hungry, and you needed something to distract you from your… _dream_ , so you nodded and followed him into his kitchen. He told you to sit on a stool situated near the kitchen island, and he rustled around in his fridge before he pulled out a loaf of bread, some meat, cheese, and condiments. The food laid down on the island in front of you and taunted your hungry stomach. You wanted to grab them and start eating, but Ushijima had something else in mind.

“Are you fine with sandwiches?” he asked, and you nodded.

“I like mine with ham, lettuce, tomatoes, and extra cheese please!” 

“As you wish, princess.”

You giggled at the playful tone in his words, and he set to work making your sandwich. Each layer of your sandwich came together with such ease as he placed each component in neat arrangements, making it seem like you were watching a cooking show. Even if he made the most disgusting combination of foods possible for a sandwich, you would still eat it because of the care he’d put into making it with his eyes holding a sweet, soft look as if he were cooking for his most loved person. 

A finished sandwich greeted you as he placed a plate in front of you, and you thanked him before taking a big bite while he worked on constructing his own sandwich. You hummed in satisfaction as the cheese mixed with the flavor of the ham and tomatoes, the lettuce adding an extra crunch that satisfied your ears. He watched you with a hint of a smile on his lips, but you were too infatuated with your food to pay attention to him. As soon as he had set it out for you, you had finished it and rubbed your stomach in contentment. 

Once he had finished eating his food, he wiped his hands off and walked into his room before reemerging with a volleyball. You kicked off the stool and waddled to your shoes as he walked behind you and did the same. The door clicked shut behind the two of you as you exited his apartment and went down to the open yard in front of the complex. A few people scattered across the large expanse of lush green, and you watched as a father taught his son how to ride a bike then turned to look at the couple having a picnic on a checkered blanket. 

The volleyball bumped into your feet and grabbed your attention from the couple just as the girl was tossing grapes into her boyfriend’s mouth. You looked at Ushijima, and he nodded towards the ball. 

“You can serve so I can figure out your skill level and adjust,” he told you, and you playfully scoffed.

“Are you talking down on my volleyball skills, mister?” you asked as you bent down and picked the ball up.

“I’ve never seen you play. Can’t utterly destroy a beginner and make them lose confidence now, can I?”

Without a word, you rolled your eyes and tossed the ball in the air, slapping it with the palm of your hand and sending it flying over to him. His fingertips pushed it back towards you, and you panicked. You hadn’t thought this far ahead. As it arched down towards you, you squinted your eyes and remembered the sports manga Satori made you read. They had used their arms to receive it and send it back! You clasped your hands together and slammed your arms into the ball. It shot straight towards Ushijima from the force you exerted on it, and he caught it in his hands before it could slam into his face.

“The receive isn’t used to try to take someone out.”

You puffed up your cheeks as they turned red. “I-I know that! I just panicked. Not my fault I’ve never been taught the correct way to play volleyball.”

“Do you want me to teach you then?” he asked, and you clasped your hands together again, this time in a silent begging as you jutted out your bottom lip and made puppy dog eyes at him.

“Please, Ushijima-kun!” you said, making sure to add the honorific to the end to make it extra begging. 

He sighed a playful sigh and looked at you with a soft look before nodding. As you jumped around in excitement, the soft look in his eyes disappeared. “You don’t have to keep calling me Ushijima, you know.” When you looked at him in confusion, he took a deep breath. “It feels weird being the only one called by their surname out of our friend group. It makes me feel alienated from the rest of you guys.” 

His words sent your eyes widening. You hadn’t expected him to express his feelings like that to you, but the fact that he did made a warmth spread in your chest. He trusted you enough to tell you about his feelings, and you couldn’t be happier.

“What should I call you then?” you asked, and he stared right into your eyes, peering into your soul and leaving you frozen.

“You can call me Wakatoshi,” he said, and you choked on your saliva. 

_F-First name basis?!_

“W-W-W-” you stuttered, and his eyes studied you as he tilted his head, silently urging you on. “W-Wakatoshi!” you said, the words managing to push past your lips, and a quick smile pulled his lips back and sent your heart throbbing.

“Yes, Y/N?”

“T-Teach me how to play volleyball correctly, W-Wakatoshi!” You bowed to him as he walked up to you, and you squeezed your eyes shut as you waited for him to respond. 

A hand came down on top of your head to ruffle your hair, and you looked up to see his eyes glittering with a hint of happiness as he looked at you. “Would be my pleasure.”

He started with practicing how to set before critiquing your form. While he said your serving form was pretty much perfect, your receiving form was not. You shouldn’t clasp your hands, and you needed to hit with the inside of your forearms more so than the sides. A large red blotch on your skin from the volleyball made him click his tongue, and while he adjusted your hands and arms to the correct form, he rubbed soft circles on the irritated skin. His intoxicating scent swirled around you from his proximity to you, but instead of making your mind all muddled, it relaxed you and made you comfortable. When he helped you practice pushing your forearms forward to receive an invisible ball, you looked up at him. 

“Do you play volleyball? You have a volleyball, and you seemed to be really good during the sports festival, so it seems like more than just a hobby. You aren’t in the volleyball club though….” you said, and he looked down at you. His hands on your arms disappeared that instant, and he stepped back away from you. 

He didn’t answer you and went a few meters away from you with the volleyball in his hand to help you practice for real. As he served the ball to you, you set it back to him before the two of you started going between serving, setting, and receiving. After the ball hit into his forearms and arched back towards you, he let out a deep exhale.

“I used to play in junior high. It’s in the past,” he said, and the ball dropped to the ground next to you as you stared at him with wondering eyes. The ball rolled away from you, and you apologized before running after it.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I shouldn’t have pried like that. Sorry,” you said as you returned with the ball, and he shook his head with a sigh, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

“It’s not that. I just chose not to dwell on it and move on, but I guess it wants to keep following me around.” 

You remained silent, waiting for him to continue at his own pace, and he let out another sigh. 

“I was on a volleyball team in junior high with Ohira, Yamagata, Shirabu, Semi, and several other guys I lost connection with. Ohira, Yamagata, Semi, a couple of other guys, and I were the starting lineup—had been for two years straight. Since we were the best players, it made sense to have us on the court together, right?” Wakatoshi shook his head. “It was a mistake. Shirabu and Semi were both setters, and you can only have one setter a game, so they’d switch out every so often. During the volleyball finals for the boys, Shirabu was given the position of setter, and Semi couldn’t stand it. He wanted the attention on him, not his junior during the finals. In the last set, Shirabu fumbled a toss, and we almost lost. In the end, we won, but Semi couldn’t handle the fact that Shirabu made a bad set.” He took a deep breath as he remembered the scene.

“As we were getting ready to go back on the bus to drive back to our school, he snapped. He kept shouting at Shirabu, telling him that we almost lost, and if we had, it would have been his fault. ‘How did you fuck up such a simple serve? If you can’t do such an easy task, then you shouldn’t even be on the court at all! Don’t ruin things for others because of your own incompetence,’ he yelled at Shirabu. It was clear Semi’s jealousy at being shoved to the sidelines was showing through, and Shirabu started yelling back. As the captain, I had to break them up. 

“Shirabu was quick to turn back to normal, but Semi didn’t drop it. He kept insulting Shirabu before turning on everyone else, talking down on them, saying they didn’t deserve to be on the team for how useless they were. The way my teammates’ faces fell at his words hurt me, and I dragged him away while the others boarded the bus. As I took him to the side of the building, he told me it was my fault the other were so incompetent. I should have never been made the captain. Then he started telling me it was my fault my parents split up, and that no one liked me because of how closed off I was. I didn’t care what insults he spat at me, but the truth of the matter was that I saw what I could turn into when I looked at Semi. A person so selfish to be seen that when they didn’t get their way, they took it out on others….

“I always wanted to win games, and I loved the feeling of winning, but if that desire to win turned into a greed to always be on the court, to hate others for getting the chance instead, to tear my own team apart, then I’d rather not continue playing. It might be a weak reason, but I didn’t want to turn into someone like Semi and hurt my teammates. After the finals, any time I looked at a volleyball, my heart dropped and stomach curdled with disgust as I imagined myself yelling at my teammates for little mistakes, and I quit volleyball in freshman year of high school. The only reason I keep the volleyball in my room is to remember my past teammates and remind myself to never hurt others with my words like Semi did. Guess that’s why I can never fully forget that moment. To not hurt others, I stay quiet and don’t talk with them much. The pain in my teammates’ eyes stung worse than any cut ever could, and I never want to see it in anyone else. If I stay quiet and leave others alone, then they won’t have a chance to see me turn into what I hate the most. The rumors about me helped keep them away, so I was content. I regret dropping volleyball just like that, but I made up my mind, and I’m going to work hard to be the person I want to be.”

You stayed silent the whole time he talked, listening as he told you his reasons for quitting volleyball. While no tears glistened in his eyes, he might as well have been crying with how sad his eyes looked. You wanted to hug him, let him know you were there for him, but lending an ear to what he wanted to express was enough for him. He squeezed his eyes shut before looking at you, the sadness gone and replaced again with his normal expressionless eyes.

“That’s enough of this depressing talk. We still need to perfect your form so you can become a volleyball champion,” he said and served the ball to you to take his mind off the memories, and you obliged with his silent request.

After an hour of tossing the volleyball back and forth, the both of you went back into his apartment to finally get some work done, and the break helped clear your mind and allow you to focus on Wakatoshi’s words more. By the time the sun began to fall in the sky, the two of you had gone through all the work you needed help with, and a new found confidence spread through you. With Wakatoshi’s tutoring, you understood everything better, and you were sure you’d be able to understand everything else that came your way. If you didn’t, he’d be there for you, just like you’d be there for him any chance he needed.


	8. cultural festival

Faster than you would have liked, summer came to an end before normal classes started back up and left you tearing your hair out in frustration. Wakatoshi had given you several more lessons over summer break, and you didn't have any more strange dreams about him during those times, but the information seemed to escape your brain the moment you tried to use it. If you had to ask Wakatoshi for help on one more math problem, you were sure he would jump out the window. Whenever there was something you didn't understand, you'd ask Mrs. Yoshino instead to save him from the pain of helping you do all your work. 

A couple months passed by like that as you and your group of friends joked during lunch and helped each other with classwork, and the cultural festival crept up on your school. A week before the fated date, your homeroom teacher forced you to the front of the classroom and tasked you with coming up with an idea while he napped. You rolled your eyes at his behavior and wrote in big writing at the top of the blackboard in chalk CULTURAL FESTIVAL IDEAS.

"All right. Who has an idea for what to do for the cultural festival? Speak up before I choose something so that we can be done with this," you told them when you turned around and leaned against the podium to look at them.

"Ooh, ooh! How about a haunted house? Tendou and Ushiwaka would be perfect for it. We'd be sure to attract a lot of people with those two there to startle people," a boy said, and Satori squinted at him.

"Are you sure you want to rely on us? I'm afraid me and my boy Ushijima would frighten people so much they'd have trauma and be unable to come back to school. Right, Ushijima?" Satori asked as he tapped Wakatoshi with the back of his hand. 

Wakatoshi nodded. "Right," he said, and the class gave a soft giggle at his straightforward words. 

You smiled and wrote “haunted house” on the board and turned back to your class. "Any more suggestions?" You snapped your fingers in realization as a sudden thought crossed your mind. “First, who will be busy with their club during the cultural festival?” you asked, and half of the class raised their hands.

“Losers,” Satori mumbled under his breath, and the boy in front of him flicked his forehead. 

“How about a play?”

“Or a game like at the carnivals?”

“We could do a cafe!”

“Ooh! Ooh! What about a performance, like a dance or a song?!”

“A craft bazaar!”

“We’re in the science department, so how about a science experiment?”

“There’s a way to make crystals with borax and pipe cleaners.”

“Too time consuming! Let’s play volleyball again! Everyone’d come to see Satori and Ushijima play!”

Their words shot out at you so fast you struggled to write all of them up on the board and almost short circuited. More and more suggestions continued to come at you, and you couldn’t hear most of them. When their voices overwhelmed you, you slammed your hands down on the podium, silencing them in an instant.

“One at a time, please! I can’t write all your suggestions down if you keep yelling them at me!” you said, and your classmates zipped their mouths. Just as you told them, they raised their hands one at a time, and you were able to write their suggestions down on the board. Once you had written down all their suggestions, you looked back out at your peers. “All right, let's vote. You can also say why you think we should do something and why we shouldn’t, so let’s start!” 

“A science experiment would be too messy and time consuming!”

“A play would require us to stay after school for a long time to practice and make the set as well.”

“A craft bazaar would require some kind of crafting talent, which most of us don’t have.”  
“Speak for yourself, Sekiguchi!”

“Singing or dancing also takes time, and we’d have to sound good or be in sync for people to enjoy it.”

As they spoke and argued, you crossed off suggestions a majority of the class disagreed on. By the time they had quieted down, only the haunted house and cafe remained on the board in big white lettering. 

“We should do a haunted house!”

“Yeah, Satori and Ushijima would make it extra scary that I’m sure everyone would enjoy it!”

“But the rest of us aren’t very scary…”

“Yeah, the other guys are too short to look intimidating, and the girls are all cute and have short hair, so we can’t do Sadako or anything similar.”

“Stop insulting our pride as men!”

“That would mean Satori and Ushijima would be the only ones doing it, right?”

“That doesn’t seem fair. They should be allowed to roam around too, and I’d hate to close down our booth when they wanted a break.”

“Haunted house is a no-go then!”

“But a cafe is hard work!”

“We can take shifts though, and some girls are in home economics, you too, right, Sekiguchi?” 

“Hmm, yeah. We could ask the home ec teacher if we could bake stuff early in the morning for our cafe. She’s pretty chill, so I doubt she’d have any problem.”  
“What would we do about drinks?”

“People wouldn’t notice if we brought in bottled drinks and poured them out, right?”

“But homemade tastes better!”

You stood back and watched as your classmates talked with each other and figured out their ideas for the cultural festival. So much for being class president, huh? In the end, everyone agreed to a cafe full of desserts and hot drinks with the students as waiters and waitresses. You and the homeroom teacher both were happy once the class finished their planning, and you sat down in your seat with tired legs. All that had to be done was the preparations.

The whole week was spent creating a menu for the cafe, the physical preparations taking place on Friday and early in the morning on Saturday, and you couldn’t contain your excitement. Every student was to wear a waiter or waitress uniform to give an extra appeal, and you _really_ wanted to see Wakatoshi in a waiter uniform, how it would drape across his wide shoulders and accentuate his muscular chest while showing off his small waist and long legs. And... now you were drooling. 

Once Friday came, the students began their preparations in place of class, and everywhere one went, balloons, signs, and other items were strewn around the halls as people worked hard to bring their ideas out. Half of your class worked on making signs and posters while the other worked on gathering ingredients and making the food and drinks. You walked around with supplies in your arms, Wakatoshi in tow behind you, and you helped paint a banner to hang above your classroom.

“Wakatoshi, could you hand me the paint brush over there?” you asked him as you crouched down next a couple of girls from your class to help them with the banner. He nodded and gave you a thin paint brush for little details. “Oh, and the pink paint as well?” 

The girls beside you watched in shock as Wakatoshi listened to you and handed you everything you asked for. He stood behind you as you worked, eyes focused on you and body ready to move the moment you asked him to. The once frightening and intimidating Ushijima Wakatoshi seemed like a tame, obedient puppy.

“Hmm, we’re out of water. Can you get us some more, Wakatoshi?” you asked him as you held up mason jars containing the murky green water, and he nodded before taking them from you and walking off. As he disappeared, your classmates giggled, grabbing your attention. “Is something wrong?” 

“N-no! It’s just that Ushijima-kun seems like a puppy with how obedient he is to you! It’s unexpected,” one said, who you knew as Sakura.

“It makes me see him in a new light,” the other girl, Yui, said. “He almost seems cute with how he scurries around to get you what you ask for!” 

You giggled in agreement, and in a few minutes, Wakatoshi returned with clean water for you and the other girls. You thanked him with a smile as you grabbed them from him and placed them on the ground. Instead of walking off to help with other people, he stood behind you, waiting for your next orders.

“Hey, Ushijima-kun. Could you hand me the paint brushes please?” Sakura asked, but Wakatoshi didn’t move. 

“Wakatoshi, could you hand her the brushes?” you asked, and he grabbed the cup of paintbrushes and held them out for Sakura. 

“Thank you!” she said once she picked out a brush, and Wakatoshi hummed.

“Ah, I need that ruler next to Sato-chan. Please hand it to me, would you, Ushijima?” Yui asked, and again, Wakatoshi didn’t move.

“Wakatoshi…” you said in warning, and he grabbed the ruler to hand it to Yui, who accepted it with a suppressed giggle. As he stood still behind you, you turned to look at him. “You don’t have to wait for me to ask you for something. If you have time to stand behind me, you can use that time to help the boys finish up the wooden sign. They seem to be struggling,” you told him as you pointed toward your male classmates, who seemed to be struggling with moving the sign.

“Tendou, would you get up and help us?” Sekiguchi asked, and Satori hummed as he flipped through his manga.

“Sorry. This month’s Jump is more important. Ask someone else for help,” he said without taking his eyes off the art. 

“Who else is there to help us?” 

“I can help,” Wakatoshi said, and the group of boys jumped at his voice. 

“Ah, o-okay. Thanks, Ushijima.” 

As Wakatoshi listened to the boys’ words, you smiled before returning to the banner. Sakura and Yui shared a glance before Sakura cleared her throat. You looked up at her, and she bit her lip.

“Are-are you two on a first name basis?” Sakura asked, and you nodded, leaving her and Yui’s mouths to fall open in shock.

“Are you two dating?!” Yui blurted out with an excited look on her face, and her sudden words left your eyes widening to the size of saucers as they sunk in. You shook your head, and their faces dropped. They went back to painting, but the paintbrush dropped from your hand when an image resurfaced. 

_ Y/N… _ The sound of Wakatoshi’s strained grunts as he rocked himself back and forth inside you from your dream flashed through your mind, and your face reddened, causing you to slap your hands on the side of your face to hide the flushed skin.

At your lack of movement, Yui looked up to see you blushing, and her eyes widened. “No way! Did you two do something?”

Sakura leaned closer to you to get a good look at your face. “Is your relationship like  _ that _ ?” 

“N-no! It’s not what you think!”

“But you blushed when we talked about Ushijima!”

“That- No, we don’t have a relationship like that!”

Yui and Sakura abandoned their brushes as they scooted closer to you, suspicious looks on their faces. 

“The girls sure are lively, aren’t they?” Satori said from where he sat in his chair, manga in hand, and Wakatoshi nodded his head as he watched your face redden as the girls heckled you for an answer.

“Hey, you guys want to take a long break to get lunch and relax for a bit?” Sekiguchi said to everyone, and exhausted nods answered him. “We can put our things in the classroom and lock it to make sure nothing happens to it! You girls can go ahead while we put the sign and banner away.” 

You and the girls walked to the canteen, and Satori stood up from his chair. You expected him to come with him, he didn’t follow. He went in the opposite direction, eyes set in front of him as if he were on a mission. Sekiguchi called out to him, asking where he was going, but your friend only offered business as his answer. You wanted to stay behind with Wakatoshi, but Sakura and Yui grabbed your arms and dragged you along with them, leaving you watch as Wakatoshi moved the banner into the room with the utmost care imaginable while the other guys struggled with the large wooden sign. The other boys appeared in the canteen after a few minutes without Wakatoshi and said he went to the toilet. 

While sitting in the canteen with the rest of your class, you bounced your knee. Your class still had decorating left for the inside, and the group of girls tasked with buying the tablecloths and plates were running late because of the lack of resources in stores. With the cultural festival tomorrow at 9 in the morning, you guys couldn’t waste time doing this, yet your class wanted to take a 2 hour break to stretch and catch up. After ten minutes of Yui and Sakura bugging you about your relationship with Wakatoshi, he appeared at the canteen doors while the rest of you chowed down on lunch.

You wished you had never taken that break. 

When your class returned to the classroom, they found the door unlocked, and upon sliding it open, you found the wooden sign broken in half and the poster you, Sakura, and Yui worked on ripped to shreds. As you stood in shock at your hard work all tattered before you, your classmates turned to Wakatoshi, who’s eyes widened slightly at the sight in front of him.

“What the hell is your problem?!” Sekiguchi stomped towards Wakatoshi and grabbed his collar, shaking him around in his hands as best as he could as he snarled at him. “I thought you were actually different from the rumors, but were you just tricking us?”

Once you snapped out from your shock, you ran towards them and pushed Sekiguchi away from Wakatoshi. “Wait just a second,” you said as a hand on Sekiguchi’s chest kept him from inching closer to Wakatoshi. “What makes you think he did it?”

“Who else could it have been? After we locked the door, we gave him the key and left. No one was around, which means it was the perfect chance for him to destroy our hard work."

"How do you know you didn't leave the door unlocked and someone else broke in? You're accusing Wakatoshi with no proof!"

"Oh, shut up with your whole 'defend Ushijima' campaign. You never want to put blame on! Your feelings are getting in the way of your judgement," Sekiguchi said as he turned his anger towards you.

"That has nothing to do with this!" you yelled.

"Oh, really? Then hold him accountable for his wrong doings! We spent  _ hours  _ on these things only for them to turn up destroyed. The only one not close to us is Ushijima. He must have been jealous and done this."

"I didn't do it," Wakatoshi said, and eyes turned to him, some confused, some angry, others sad, and yours hopeful. "I wouldn't destroy your hard work and make you mad."

Sekiguchi let out a humorless chuckle and grabbed his collar again, and when you tried to come between them, Yui held you back and shook her head with a scared look. 

"And why should I believe you?" Sekiguchi seethed.

Wakatoshi's pained eyes as he peered into Sekiguchi's sent a piercing pain to your heart, and you remember the time he poured his heart out to you. The last thing he'd want was to bring pain to your classmates. Before you had the chance to defend him again, a voice interrupted.

"Ushijima-kun didn't do it."

Satori appeared, and everyone's eyes turned to him to see him dragging someone behind him as they muttered "let go" over and over. Sekiguchi clenched his first tighter around Wakatoshi's collar.

"What did you say?"

With a sigh, Satori stopped walking and yanked the person with him forward before he shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded to the newcomer. "Ushijima-kun didn't do it. This guy did."

The guy with ash blond hair stumbled forward while cursing before he straightened up and peered up to look Wakatoshi in the face. Wakatoshi blinked as he looked at the guy, and the guy's lips curled into a snarl the longer they locked eyes.

"The hell do you think you're looking at, asshole?"

At the boy's angry words, a name flashed through your mind: Semi Eita. This was the guy Wakatoshi had told you about not wanting to be like, and you could understand why. The sheer hostility in Semi's voice was enough to curdle milk. 

"Uh, I think he's looking at you," came Satori's smart ass response, but everyone ignored him as they focused on the forming tension between Wakatoshi and Semi.

"Why?" was the only word Wakatoshi spoke after a long period of silence, and Semi’s nostrils flared.

“You abandon us for three years, and  _ that _ ’s all you have to say?!”

“Why?” Wakatoshi repeated, and Semi grabbed his collar to yank him closer to his fuming face.

“Because you’re an idiot! You threw away so many opportunities, and for what? Because you couldn’t handle a few harsh words from me? Was your resolve that weak? Volleyball was your everything, and yet you discarded it like you did your friends! I should be asking  _ you  _ why!” Semi said, his words sharp knives as they dug into Wakatoshi, and Wakatoshi’s face turned pained at every sentence spoken. “When your life turned to shit, you used volleyball to cope and talked to us about your worries, but then you left us. You wanna know why I broke your dumb shit? Because I knew people would blame you, and then your life would be back to shit, and you’d come crawling back to volleyball like you did before. Except you didn’t! All those rumors I spread about you, when I broke the chemistry teacher’s beakers and flasks, and even this don’t have any affect on you! Why? Why did you never come back? Why when things are even so clearly your fault are you never penalized for it? If you hadn’t asked to send Shirabu into the finals match, we would have won by a landslide!”

“We still won in the end.”

“At the expense of people laughing at us!” Semi pushed Wakatoshi, but the boy didn’t stumble. “You might act like things are never your fault, but I hope you know you’re the reason your parents divorced, bastard.”

Fire pulsed through your veins at how his words pierced Wakatoshi, but a hand on your wrist kept you grounded. Sakura and Yui shook their heads at you and pointed at Wakatoshi, who had remained silent after the jab. While you struggled to keep yourself from slapping Semi across the face, Wakatoshi let out a humorless chuckle.

“I see you’re still as bitter as always, Semi. It’s great to see you. I just wish it wasn’t like this.” Wakatoshi stepped closer to Semi, and the ash blond boy tensed up. “You ask me why I never came back? Because I don’t have a need to. While you tried to pull me away from people, others reached out to me to help me. I have them to rely on instead of volleyball. I may have thrown opportunities away, but if it meant I would turn into a spiteful person like you, then I’m glad I left it behind.” 

Your class remained silent as confusion spread between them, and Satori clapped his hands to startle them out of their stupor. “Well there you have it! Wakatoshi didn’t do it, and now we know the true culprit! Yipee, hurray!” he said as he pushed his way into the middle of the crowd to gather everyone’s attention, and when he passed by Sekiguchi, he leaned into his ear. "Have a little more faith in your classmates, bud." Satori patted Sekiguchi's back and gave the rest of your peers a glare that left them apologizing to Wakatoshi. While they apologized, Semi tried to sneak off steam blowing out from his ears, but a hand grabbed onto the back of his collar and pulled him back. He fell to the floor, and when he looked up, Satori peered down at him with a sickeningly sweet smile. "Where do you think you're going? You still need to clean up the mess you made." 

A sigh of relief left your body slumping as Satori cleared Wakatoshi’s name, but the problem with your destroyed preparations still remained. It would take a long time, yet your classmates had a new vigor to them as they set to work, apologizing to Wakatoshi as they sent Semi to do things for them while they worked. While it was a close call, you knew this cultural festival would turn out just fine.


	9. wisteria

While you had wanted to spend the cultural festival with Wakatoshi, you had been too busy checking up on other classes at the request of your homeroom teacher that you didn’t get to see him in a waiter uniform, and the festival ended before you could see him. You saw him on the other schools days afterwards, but seeing his face reminded you that you missed the look of Wakatoshi as a waiter with his wide shoulders, strong chest, and small waist accentuated by the tight uniform. It would haunt you forever.

Before you knew it, winter break came to signal the end of the second semester, and you lost contact with Wakatoshi. You assumed he was spending his time with his family since he didn’t answer your text, but a nagging feeling in your gut told you he was probably just ignoring you, and the nagging feeling continued throughout all of break and into the third semester of school. Once school started again, you talked to him like normal, but something felt missing, as if he wasn’t fully present or listening to your words. Whenever you asked Sara or Satori about his behavior, they would act as if nothing was wrong. 

The seasons changed from winter to spring, and finals came around. Wakatoshi spoke even less to you in class, and the few words he did speak left you feeling empty. You’d ask him to study, but he’d deflect and say he was busy every time you asked. It was clear he was avoiding you, but with the looming threat of finals and college entrance exams, you couldn’t find the time to confront him, and much to your dissatisfaction, graduation came before you could clear things up with him. 

You couldn’t focus on the words the student council president spoke as they stood on the stage in the auditorium, mind too full of how you were going to corner Wakatoshi and get him to talk to you. You received your diploma in a blur and met your family outside. 

“How does it feel to finally be free of school?” your father asked once he wrapped you up in his arms for a bear hug.

“Doesn’t feel much different from before,” you said, and he chuckled as your mother snapped a picture of you two.

“Once you get a job, you’ll feel the difference.” 

You nodded at his words as you looked around in search of Wakatoshi, hoping to talk to him before he left. A tall figure caught your eyes, and you knew it was him. Just as you were about to run after him, he disappeared into the sea of people. As his body moved farther away from you, your heart sank deeper and deeper in your stomach until it became heavy. The chance to tell him how you felt and to clear up any problems slipped through your fingers and disappeared into the ground, unable to be picked up, and your heavy heart cracked.

Sara skipped as she made her way towards you, a smile on her face, and when she stopped in front of you and your family, she greeted your parents before waving at you. Your parents said they’d give you two some time to talk before you left.

“Have… have you seen Toshi?” you asked Sara, looking around for any trace Wakatoshi may have left behind, and she pursed her lips in thought as she hummed.

“I saw him during the ceremony, but he kind of disappeared after that. Satori said he hasn’t seen him either. He might have gone home already to prepare for college.”

At her words, your face fell, and your chest hurt. After this, you might never see him again, and that thought alone almost sent tears streaming down your face. The feelings you held in for so long begged to be let out, but the chance had disappeared and left them to eat you from inside out.

“Hey, hey! Y/N, you should join us!” Sara said as she wrapped an arm around your shoulder and pulled you close to her body, noticing your change in behavior. “We’re going to the graduation party and karaoke afterwards. And,” she leaned in close to your ear, “we’re going to get drunk, but don’t tell anyone.”

While the idea of spending graduation night with your ex-classmates sounded fun, without Wakatoshi, it felt pointless to you. A hole in your heart left by his absence would never be filled by trying to use other people as a substitute. No amount of drinking or partying with your friends could get your mind off him.

“I have to go apartment hunting with my parents. I wanted to move out the moment I graduated, so I’d rather start now than later,” you said, hoping she’d accept that excuse even though it wasn’t a complete lie. You had been mentioning to your parents about moving into an apartment before college and getting a job to pay for it, and they agreed since they trusted you and wanted to give you your independence as an adult. Not exactly the most exciting possible thing at the moment, but you had wanted to be with Wakatoshi, not your classmates. 

“Boring! Have fun anyway. You’ve been saying you wanted an apartment once you graduated, so I’m glad it’s happening now.” She patted your head, and you whined in discomfort until she stopped.

“You actually remembered though! Does that mean you like me?” you joked, and her face flushed.

“Sh-shut up! I’ll tell Wakatoshi you’re flirting with me,” she said as she hid her face in her hands. When you didn’t respond, she dropped her hands and looked at you with an apologetic face. “Sorry. I’m sure he was just busy. Text him later this week or call him. He won’t ignore you forever, Y/N.”

You nodded your head at her encouraging words, though a small part of you didn’t believe her. She wished you luck and said to contact her if you ever wanted to hang out or talk before she and your classmates walked off towards the karaoke bar. You met back up with your parents and went to search for an apartment for you to live in during college.

It didn’t take you as long as you expected to find an apartment that fit your needs, and within a week, you had moved in. The cherry blossoms bloomed, and your first college semester started, and still no response from Wakatoshi. All your texts or calls were either left on read or ignored, and you couldn’t believe he was ghosting you. You wanted to talk to him, to hear his voice say your name one more time. College classes took your mind off him for a bit, but your longing for him struck whenever you tried to fall asleep.

When it became unbearable early one night, you grabbed your phone to call him and leave a voice message for him. The moment you readied your finger to press down on the call button, a notification vibrated your phone. A text from him.

Your cracked heart pounded, and hope filled you. You opened the text, and a wide smile spread across your face. He texted to ask you if you would like to accompany him somewhere. Without thinking, you texted him that you would love to, cringing at your own eagerness and hoping it wouldn’t scare him away. Instead of scaring him away, he sent you the meeting place and a time, which happened to be several minutes from now. 

You jumped out of bed faster than the speed of light and searched through your horribly organized dresser to find an outfit to wear to see him. As it had been a while since you last saw him, you wanted to doll yourself up for him and hear him compliment you. With the sound of him saying you looked cute echoing in your mind, you readied your outfit with a wide smile on your face and rushed outside to meet up with him. You arrived a few minutes early and saw him standing by a lamppost, hands in pockets as he glanced at his phone. 

To hide your excitement at seeing him after Lord knew how long, you took a deep breath before walking towards him after you fixed your beret and smoothed out the wrinkles in your skirt. At the sound of your footsteps, he looked up at you and pocketed his phone.

“Looks like we’re both early,” you joked.

“I just got here as well,” he said, and you knew he was lying by the way he avoided your eyes and tapped his foot on the floor.

You hummed and smiled up at him. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Toshi?”

“You’re right. I’m sorry for acting distant with you. Some things were going on, and I didn’t know how to deal with them,” he apologized, and you kept yourself from giving him a large hug and kiss. He looked like a kicked puppy as he apologized, and you knew he felt bad.

All the irritation you had at him ignoring you and pushing you away disappeared at his behavior. The boy you had once thought of as emotionless and indifferent truly looked sad and in need of company. You wanted to be there for him whenever he needed you, and the fact he texted you made you happy.

“It’s fine. I’m just happy you didn’t block me. I was being a little annoying with all my texts and calls. Let’s just forget about that today and spend some time together,” you said, and he nodded, though he didn’t look convinced. “What exactly did you text me here to do? Anything in particular?”

“I wanted to take you to see something. Do you mind if I cover your eyes until we reach the spot?” he asked, and you couldn’t say no. The tenderness in his voice made you want to listen to every word he said.

Darkness enveloped your vision as his hands came up to cover your eyes. His chest pressed against your back as he pushed you forward. The feeling of being blindfolded and led somewhere unknown would have normally scared you, but the familiar scent of Wakatoshi’s cologne kept you calm, and his body heat relaxed your body. 

His hands disappeared from your eyes as he stopped, and his body heat left you when he stepped away from you. He told you to open your eyes, and when you did, your breath caught in your chest. 

Fully bloomed wisteria trees twinkled in the dark night sky as pale lights hung from the branches and illuminated the area. Each light looked like a bright star against the shadows cast by the whanging wisteria, and you twirled around as you craned your neck to look at all the lights. It looked like a scene straight out of a romance movie.

“It-it’s so beautiful,” you said as you looked at the purple wisteria flowers.

“I had thought of taking you to see the cherry blossoms, but I thought wisteria would be better.” He walked up behind you and stared up at the trees. “The To in Sato stands for wisteria. And the wisteria flower stands for support, tenderness, and,” his eyes looked at you with a soft look that made you ready to melt, “ _ love _ .”

Your heart sped up at his words, and you wanted to believe his words had another meaning, but he glanced back at the flowers before you could ask him. The world froze as the only thing you could see was Wakatoshi when you looked back at him, everything around him blurry. Wakatoshi stood, staring up at the purple wisteria with a wide smile on his face. You could feel your heart pounding in your ears. You wanted to imprint the image of his happiness in your brain forever. 

When he felt your eyes on him, he turned to look at you with the soft remnants of his wide smile. Your nerves tingled, and without thinking, you stood on your tippy toes and tilted your head to the side, pressing your lips against his. What you had meant as a soft peck turned into a lingering kiss as you couldn’t find it in you to pull away. The moment your lips touched his, everything felt right in the world, and you wanted to stay here with him forever. He tilted his head to the side and kissed back, raising a hand to hold your cheek, but the sudden realization of what you were doing hit you, and you pulled away from his soft lips tasting of vanilla lip balm.

The two of you stared in silence, and your stomach sank as he opened his mouth to speak. You feared he would tell you he regretted the kiss, and your heart couldn’t handle it. 

“I’m sorry,” you told him, tears threatening to spill from your eyes as you knew your actions could never be taken back and would only worsen the divide between you two. He reached out a hand to grab your arm, but the tears fell, and you turned away from him before you could break down in front of him. A hand covered your mouth to hold in the sobs as you ran back towards your apartment without looking back at him. You didn’t want to see his disappointed face at your horrible behavior. 

Now you had done it. What little faith he had in you most definitely had shattered when you pulled away from that kiss, and the look of shock mixed with confusion broke your heart. You were an idiot. 


	10. final chapter: hear your voice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning | NSFW content

You hadn’t meant to run away from Wakatoshi last night, but the overwhelming realization of your actions left you embarrassed and unwilling to look him in the eyes or contact him. Satori and Sara called you to check up on you, and you spilled to them about what happened with Wakatoshi, to which they yelled at you over the phone and forced you to agree to meet up with them tonight to talk some sense into you. So that was why you stood in front of your body length mirror, looking at yourself in the mirror to check if you were suitable enough to go out in public. 

Dark circles rested underneath your eyes, proving to others how little sleep you received after staying up all night to yell at yourself in the mirror for being an idiot who ran away from Wakatoshi after kissing him. Minus the dark circles, you’d say you were passable with your suspender skirt over your white button up shirt paired with black thigh highs and loafers. After standing in front of your mirror for several minutes contemplating whether to go outside or not, you decided to stop staring at yourself in the mirror and to go meet up with Sara and Satori to get an earful from both of them. 

The moment you opened the door, though, a familiar scent of musk, cinnamon, and lavender reached your nose, and you looked up to see Wakatoshi staring down at you. His chest heaved up and down as his eyes swirled with thousands of emotions you couldn't even begin to describe. Your heart picked up at the sight of him, and you were tempted to close the door to escape his eyes. As you tried to close the door though, a large hand grabbed it to keep it from shutting, and he leaned over while he pushed the door wider.

"T-Toshi?" you said, your words unsure as he stared at you in silence and towered over you.

"You ran away."

A nervous chuckle left you as you avoided his intense gaze, remembering the scene from yesterday you had been wanting to forget.

"D-Did I? I-I don't quite remember if I'm being honest." You stepped back into the entrance hall when he pushed inside and closed the door behind him. The sound of a lock clicking echoed in the quiet apartment, and your chest moved up and down at an erratic pace as you waited for him to speak.

"You won't be able to run away this time," he said, and his heavy footsteps sent shock waves through your body with each step he took towards you. 

You backed up as he closed in on you, and a soft gasp escaped your mouth when the wall hit your back. His hand came down on the wall next to your head, trapping you as he leaned his towering figure over you. Heavy breaths pushed past your lips as his hot breath fanned over your lips, and his eyes stared straight into yours with hunger blazing in them. Your legs trembled when a hand ghosted over the skin of your upper thigh exposed by your skirt. His fingers swirled little circles on the fabric of your stockings, and a shaky squeak left you at the sudden sensation. 

“Are-are you drunk, Toshi?” you dared to ask, and he leaned in close to your ear, his hot breath sending shivers down your spine as it hit your ear. 

“I’m drunk on you. You’re making me act crazy and do things I never would have done otherwise. The problem is despite what you do to me, I don’t want to ever be sober,” he rasped, and you clutched onto his shoulders as your legs failed you and crumpled beneath you at the deep, husky sound of his voice.

“I-I don’t… I don’t think I understand wh-what you’re getting at,” you said, hiding your face in his chest and clutching his jacket in your hands to avoid his strong gaze that would have you wrapped around his finger the moment you locked eyes with him. His steady heartbeat rang in your ears, and you hated how he remained calm in this situation when you were a mess just by having his presence near you.

His hand on your thigh moved up to your face and lifted your head up to look him in the eyes. “Maybe this will help you understand.” He placed his lips on yours, tilting his head to the side as he deepened the kiss.

You responded to the kiss after a few seconds of standing frozen in place, the warmth of his lips and taste of vanilla relaxing you and leaving you desperate for him. To bring him closer to you, your arms wrapped around his neck to keep him from pulling away from the kiss. You stood on your tippy toes as you moved your lips against his in hungry movements, wanting to taste more of him

As your lungs burned, desperate for air, you pulled away, and he placed his forehead against yours as heavy pants left both of your mouths to swirl together in front of you. “Did that help you figure out what I meant?” he asked as he cupped your face as peered straight into your eyes.

Instead of answering him, you tilted your head and pressed your lips against his again, your tongue gliding across his bottom lip as you asked for entrance into his mouth. His lips parted, and you took the chance to slip your tongue inside, letting out a pleased hum when you tasted the bitter taste of coffee in his mouth. As your tongue tangled with his, he slid a hand up your thigh to grip your ass underneath your skirt, and you jumped as his calloused fingers kneaded your flesh. 

While he groped your ass and pulled you closer, you moaned into his mouth when his erection rubbed against you. You grinded against him, eager to feel him against you as he ravished your mouth. The hand on your ass slipped down to the back of your thighs, lifting it up to his hip as he pushed himself closer and grinded against your clothes entrance. 

Your body shook as your pussy clenched around nothing, wanting to feel him inside you. The feeling of his boner rubbing against you left arousal dripping from you wet slit to dirty your panties, and you couldn’t take it anymore. You pulled away from the kiss to hold his jaw in your hand as you stared him in the eyes with lust swirling in your irises.

“Please fuck me, Toshi,” you pleaded breathlessly. 

Both of his hands grabbed onto your ass as he dipped his head down to your neck to pepper kisses along your exposed skin. “Jump,” he mumbled against you, and you complied with his words, jumping up for him to catch you and pull you against him, hands supporting your ass as your hands circled around his neck to stabilize yourself. Your shoes slipped from your feet, and he kicked his shoes off as well.

You threw your head back as he sucked hickies on your neck and walked towards your bedroom. When he entered your room, he sat down on your bed and held you in his lap, your legs straddling him as you gripped onto his shoulders, the unfamiliar sensation of his lips ghosting over your skin making your head fuzzy. You rubbed yourself against him as his clothed dick rubbed against your soaked panties. 

His hands slipped underneath your skirt and shirt to run along the dips in your waist, shuddering breaths slipping from your lips as his calloused fingers sent tingles wherever they touched. As his hand brushed along your spine, you arched your back and pushed your breast against his chest. He bit his lips at the sight of you, desperate for his touch. While one hand continued to run up and down your side, the other slipped out from your skirt to reach for the buttons of your shirt. He popped the buttons of your shirt to expose the top of your breasts, and he trailed his lips down from your neck to place soft kisses on your exposed breasts. Your hands gripped the back of his head, fingers grabbing onto his hair as your trembling mewls echoed through your room. 

“Toshi,” you begged, and Wakatoshi stopped planting kisses on your skin to look up at you with hungry eyes. 

When you looked down at him with lust-filled eyes, he popped the rest of the buttons of your shirt open and slipped the suspenders off your shoulders to rip your shirt off your chest to expose your perky breasts hidden by your bra. He switched your positions so that your back rested on your bed, and he slid in between your legs to hover over you. He gripped your skirt and yanked it off, leaving you in your panties, bra, and stockings. Your body shivered as cold air hit your exposed skin, and he rubbed his hands up and down your side to warm you up. 

You melted against his touch, soft purrs leaving you as he touched you, and he ran his hands over your restrained breasts. A hand slid along your back and fiddled with your bra clasp. You let out a content hum when the bra clasp came undone, and he slipped the bra from your breasts. Cold air hit your nipples, and they hardened, Wakatoshi eyeing them hungrily as they stood proud in the air.

A surprised gasp filled the silence in the room as he placed his lips around your nipple, tongue swirling around the hard bud as a hand fondled the other one, twisting the nipple between his fingers before rubbing circles on it with the pad of his thumb. The other hand slipped down to your clothed entrance, and you shuddered as he ran a finger up and down the covered slit, your arousal seeping into your panties as his digit rubbed against you. 

He pulled off your breast to look up at you with a smirk on his lips. “Look at how wet you are. Are you that desperate for me, you little whore?” he asked, pressing his finger against your clothed opening.

At the derogatory name coupled with his hands on your breast and opening, a filthy moan escaped your red lips, and he groaned at the sound. “God, yes, Toshi!” you said, wanting him inside you already.

His hand at your pussy disappeared, and he slapped your stocking-covered thigh before you had the chance to complain. As a shocked, debauched whine left you arching your back, he jabbed the inside of his cheek with his tongue, a vein in his neck popping as he glared at you. “That’s not my name, baby girl.”

A wave of heat rushed down to your core as your mind raced. “Please fuck me, Daddy…” you said as you bit your lip and looked into his angry eyes with hooded lids, arms coming up to wrap around his neck.

His eyes rolled back in his head, and he slipped your panties off to expose your dripping entrance. His body disappeared from on top of you to slide in between your legs, and he spread your thighs to stare at your pulsing entrance, needy for him. A muscle in his jaw twitched at the sight of your pink slit in front of him, and he ran a finger down it from your clit before he slipped it inside and felt your walls clench around his digit. You whimpered at the feeling of his long finger in you, the feeling foreign and uncomfortable. Of course you had fingered yourself, but your short fingers didn’t compare to the feeling of his rough, long finger rubbing against your warm walls. 

When he noticed your slight discomfort at the feeling, he dipped his head down towards your opening, breath fanning against your clit as he started pumping his finger inside you. As you let out strained gasps, he circled his tongue around your clit before he sucked on it, stopping every so often to flick his tongue around the bud. With your attention focused on his tongue working your clit, he slipped another long finger inside you and began scissoring your tight pussy, arousal coating his digits as he did so. You arched your back as he sucked on your clit, and when you looked down, he stared straight into your eyes with a hungry look that made you clench around his fingers.

He pulled off your clit and clenched his jaw. “I don’t think I can be patient any more,” he said, and you bit your lip.

“Then don’t be, Daddy,” you replied, and he ran his tongue over his lips before he removed his fingers from inside you and slipped his shirt off, exposing his rippling chest to your hungry eyes. 

You ran a curious hand over his abs, the feeling of the hard muscled beneath your palm leaving you wanting to touch him all over. Your hand trailed up his chest, and he groaned at your cold hands against his skin as he undid his belt to unzip his pants and yank them down his legs along with his boxers. His erection sprang free from its confines, and your eyes widened as you looked at it. The long length stared back at you, tip bright red and leaking precum as veins popped up along the shaft. There was no way it would fit inside you, but damn if you didn’t want to try.

Your hands stopped caressing his chest to run down his stomach before stopping at the base of his cock. Warmth spread along your hands as you held it in your palm, squeezing it softly to gauge his reaction. He hissed at the feeling, and you ran your hands up and down his length in an attempt to give him the pleasure you received from him. His eyes screwed shut, and his head fell back as you rubbed your thumb around his tip, smearing the precum on it and thumbing the slit with the pad of your thumb. Shuddering breaths spilled from his lips, egging you on, and you scooted closer to him and got on your knees, face leaning towards his hard cock. You had never sucked a dick before, but you’d watched porn, so how hard could it be? 

You regretted your false confidence as you wrapped your lips around the tip and swirled your tongue around it, the bitter taste of precum coating your tongue. It wasn’t bad at first, but when you pulled your hair back from your face and slid your head farther down his length, tears pricked your eyes as your throat stretched around his girth. You knew he was big from the size, but you never expected it to actually be so big as to barely fit inside your mouth. You couldn’t even fit a third of it in your mouth without gagging, and Wakatoshi ran his fingers through your hair in encouragement and as a warning to do only what was comfortable for you. 

Your watery eyes peered up at him to see him looking down at you with passionate eyes, the feeling of your warm mouth around his cock sending his mind whirring. You moaned around his dick, the look of pleasure on his face sending heat shooting to your neglected pussy. As you bobbed your head on his dick, pushing yourself farther down his cock with each movement, a hand trailed down your stomach to your dripping entrance. A finger ran up and down your slit before two fingers slipped easily inside, your knuckles rubbing against your lips. 

“Did I say you could touch yourself, you disgusting slut?” he rasped, and you clenched around your fingers, needy whines muffled by his cock in your mouth. He gripped your hair between his fingers and yanked your mouth off his head with a loud pop, sensual eyes staring at his cock while your tongue lapped up the precum smudged on your lips. He tilted your head back, your scalp burning and tingling, and he smashed his lips to yours as a hand grabbed your wrist and pulled your fingers out of your pussy and laid you onto your back.

He grabbed his pants and pulled something out of the pocket before he sat up between your legs. A condoms packet reached his mouth as he teared the edge with his teeth, other hand rubbing his dick to harden it. The sight of him jerking himself while taking out a condom, muscles twitching, left you clenching your thighs in anticipation. Before long, he pulled the condom free from the wrapper and slid it over his hard length, hand slipping between your clenched thighs to pull them apart to give him access to your needy opening.

“Are you sure you want this,” he asked, eyes staring straight into yours, and you nodded your head while maintaining eye contact, more sure of this than anything else. “Give me vocal consent, baby.”

“Yes, I want you inside me, Daddy,” you said, and he sucked in a shaky breath, trying his best to go slow for you. 

He situated himself between your thighs, one hand rubbing the inside of your thighs through the fabric of your stockings while the other steadied his dick. He rubbed the tip up and down your slit, coating it in your arousal before he started pushing himself inside you. Your hands clutched his shoulders as your face contorted into pain, your walls stretching around his large girth. 

Tears slipped from your eyes, and he leaned up to kiss them from your flushed face. “It’s all right, baby. I’ll go slowly,” he said, and his reassuring voice made you relax, and he slid a bit more inside you. 

You clenched your jaw as it felt like you were being ripped apart down there, and you grabbed his face to smash your lips against his, silently begging for him to take your mind away from the pain in your lower half. He swirled his tongue around your mouth, pausing every once in a while to suck on your tongue while a hand rubbed soothing circles on your hip, the other rolling your breast around and fiddling with the nipple, pinching it and rubbing it between his fingers.

You moaned into his mouth as pleasure from his hands distracted you, and he slid into you until his hips rested against your entrance. He pulled away from your lips, and you bit your lip at the feeling of his large dick filling you up. While you adjusted to his length, he remained still inside you, waiting for you to give him the go. 

A vein in his neck popped up, and you knew he was using all his self control to keep from slamming into you. Even though you hadn’t fully adjusted, you told him to move inside you, sure you’d adjust while he thrusted in and out of you. You were wrong though, as searing pain shot through your lower half when he pulled out before pushing himself back in. He pressed soft kisses on your skin while mumbling apologies to you as you squeezed your eyes shut. After a few minutes of slow thrusting, hushed moans spilled from your lips as pleasure replaced the pain once you adjusted to his size. He groaned as you warm walls sucked him inside, and you gripped the bed sheets as his pace began to speed up.

“I don’t think I can hold back,” he rasped, voice strained as he clenched his teeth. 

“Don’t… Don’t hold back! Fuck me harder, Daddy,” you whined, and the thin line of self control he had left snapped when your desperate voice reached his ears and sent more blood rushing to his dick. 

Without warning, he pulled out of you until only his tip remained in you and snapped his hips, his full length disappearing inside you and slamming deep inside you. Your mouth opened into a silent moan as your hands gripped his shoulders. Your body rocked back and forth as he continued to thrust inside you, hitting the same spot with each snap of his hips, and the bed creaked every time he pushed inside you. 

He connected your lips in a hungry kiss, teeth clashing as he continued to fuck into you. A hand held your hips and aided in pushing you down onto his cock while the other slipped between your legs to sporadically rub your clit. Pleasure clouded your senses, your body not used to it, and the familiar warmth seeped into your pussy. 

“I-I can’t hold it anymore,” you whined, head falling back against the pillow, and he groaned as you writhed beneath him, the pleasure taking over your senses..

“Let it out, baby,” he husked, and your body spasmed as the heat in your core became unbearable and spread throughout your body, muscles tensing as your orgasm shot through you. 

Your hands clawed at his back, your orgasm hitting you harder than ever and making stars flash in your vision. While your pussy clenched around Wakatoshi’s length, he continued thrusting in and out of you, his movements becoming sloppy as his own high came within reach. The feeling of his cock rubbing against your sensitive, orgasming walls left you whining in discomfort, and before long, the condom expanded as he came with a groan. 

He remained inside you for a few seconds as you both calmed down from your highs, and when your hands dropped from his back to the bed and your chest heaved up and down, he pulled out. As you laid on the bed and calmed your erratic heart rate, he pulled the condom off, tied it, and threw it in the trash before returning to your tired body. He slipped his hands under your thighs and back and picked you to carry you into the bathroom. You sat on the edge of the bathtub, watching him with dazed eyes as he filled the tub and helped you peel your stockings off of your sweaty legs. 

When water filled the tub, he quickly left the bathroom to check something, and you took the chance to use the toilet. Once he returned and you finished using the toilet, he lifted you into the tub and climbed in himself. He washed you and massaged shampoo into your hair while you hummed in content at his careful movements. 

Before long, you both finished bathing, and he dried you off before dressing you and carrying you back to your bed. He laid you on the mattress and slid beside you before he pulled the covers over both of you. An arm wrapped around your waist and rubbed soft circles on your clothed hip, and you sighed in satisfaction at the warmth from his body seeping into you and relaxing your sore body. The both of you laid in silence, enjoying each other’s presence before a sudden thought flashed through your mind.

“How did you find out where my apartment even was?” you asked as you snuggled into his side, head resting on his chest as you swirled your fingers on his sternum. 

“I asked Satori and Sara,” he said, his chest rumbling as he spoke, and you stopped drawing circles on his chest to look up at him. “They also said for you to call them tomorrow with details, so you shouldn’t worry about not meeting with them tonight.”

You choked on your saliva, coughs wracking your body as you tried to calm yourself down. Damn Satori and Sara. They knew this would happen. You couldn’t say you were mad at them, though. As you listened to Wakatoshi’s soft heartbeat, you knew there was nowhere else you’d rather be.

“I love you so much,” you said. 

A finger rested underneath your chin and tilted your head up to look him straight in the eyes. Your breath caught in your throat as love swirled in his irises, entrancing you and leaving you wanting nothing more than to stay with him. He leaned down to place a soft kiss against your lips, and he drew back to bite your bottom lip and tug on it.

“I love you too.”


	11. special chapter: welcome home, master

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning | NSFW content

Soft hums echoed through the apartment as you busied yourself with making dinner for you and Wakatoshi. It had been a hard week for him at work, but the business proposal had finally gone through, which left a huge weight off his shoulders. To congratulate him, you had set up a special surprise for him. It wasn’t your own idea though, and you had to ask Satori and Sara for ideas on how to give him your biggest congratulations the day before.

Satori had stated the obvious: cook his favorite meal for him, and you had already decided to cook hayashi rice for him. Sara, on the other hand, had a different idea. A blush spread on your face as you remembered her suggestion and how you were now going along with it. 

“He must have been super stressed about everything that happened, so since things are better, you should help him relieve what stress he has left. What better way to do that than to seduce him and give him what he wants,” Sara had told you with a serious expression on her face. Satori had spit his drink out, and you had choked on your saliva. 

“Wh-What do you mean?” you asked.

“I’m saying you appeal to his fantasies so that he has no choice but to fuck you until all his stress is gone.”

You and Satori covered your eyes as the people closest to your table gave you weird looks at your friend’s strong choice of words.

“Be a little quieter, Sara-chan,” Satori said, and she brushed him off.

“How do I do that?” you asked, and Satori looked at you in astonishment.

“Are you taking her words seriously?”

“Why aren’t you doing the same? You usually backup my ideas so strongly, so what’s so different now?”

Before they could argue, you cleared your throat. Their eyes turned to you, and you fiddled with your hands. You couldn’t believe you were asking them for how to spice things up between you and Wakatoshi.

“Girl, you’ve been with Wakatoshi for three years, and you’re telling me you don’t know what he likes?” Sara asked in disbelief. “You shouldn’t even need our help finding out what  _ your _ man likes!”

You expected Satori to scold you with her, but he just played with his straw, watching the liquid move up and down as he plugged the top up with his finger. “Dress up like a maid or something. You said he likes it when you wear tights or stockings, and it could be a good opportunity to call him master and all that.”

“Woah, you finally have a good idea?” Sara said and poked him in the shoulder.

“I’m sure Wakatoshi would like the change. You could also do the famous line, ‘Would you like dinner? A bath? Or me?’” he said, and Sara clapped her hands.

“For once you have a good idea!” She leaned over the table to stare straight into your eyes. “Do it! Dress up as a sexy maid and seduce him until he breaks your back. You haven’t had much action yourself, so you can use this as a chance to let yourself loose.”

“Will he really like that?” you asked, hands clasping your red face as you imagined the embarrassment you’d feel.

“You’ll never know until you try it out,” Satori said, and you cursed him silently in your mind for persuading you—not really—into doing this.

You itched to run into your room and change out of the maid uniform before Wakatoshi came home, but a small part of you wanted to see his reaction to your ass peeking out from the short skirt, your lace panties exposed for his eyes to see and leaving nothing to the imagination. The sound of the lock turning startled you, and your heart rate increased. It was now or never. 

Before the door opened, you walked to the foyer to greet him. The door opened to reveal Wakatoshi, his tie loose as he stepped inside the apartment. His suit hugged his body and showed off the rippling muscles beneath, and a sense of pride lit up in you. You wanted to seduce him until both of you were stripped of your clothes and one in bed. 

“Welcome home, master,” you said in a seductive voice, making sure to coat every word in honey as they slowly slipped from your lips. His eyes shot up to you in surprise at your behavior, and you walked up to him, biting your lip as you returned his stare with hooded eyes. “Would you like dinner? Maybe a bath?” His eyes darkened as you wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled his face down close to yours. “Or would you rather have... me?” you whispered. 

A muscle in his jaw twitched, and a sense of excitement bubbled in your stomach as you waited for him to slam you into the wall and strip you of all your clothes. Your fantasy didn’t happen though as he took a deep breath.

“I’ll have dinner.”

Your hands slipped from his neck as disappointment settled in, and he walked to the dining room table while taking off his blazer. With a roll of your eyes, you followed after him and gave him a plate of food with a sly smirk as he hung the blazer on the back of his chair. He thanked you for the food before he dug in, and an idea sparked in your mind.

As he enjoyed the food you made, you got on all fours and crawled under the table until you were situated between his legs. You licked your lips as what you had been yearning for stared you in the face, a barrier of clothes keeping you from it. A hand trailed up his inner thigh before running over his lower half. He let out a low groan, and you bit your lips as his dick hardened beneath your touch, a smile on your lips at the effect you had on him. 

Your hand hovered over his zipper as you waited for a reaction. Other than the groan, he remained silent as he ate in an attempt to not give you any reaction. If he was going to act like that, you’d make sure to do something that would force him to give you a reaction you wanted. In a swift movement, you unzipped his pants and pulled out his semi-hard cock, mouth salivating at the sight. 

You placed soft kisses along the shaft, smiling against it when it hardened beneath your lips. Beads of precum formed on the tip, and you trailed your tongue along the slit to taste his precum. A content hum left you as the familiar bitter taste of precum coated your tongue. At your movements, Wakatoshi sucked in a deep breath, and you rolled your thumb around his tip as you licked a stripe up the veins. Your other hand ghosted over his inner thighs before finding home on his balls and massaging them in your palm. 

A soft grunt left him, and your pussy clenched at the sound. You were growing impatient, and your thumb stopped moving around his tip. Before he could tell you to continue, your mouth replaced where your thumb once was. The silverware clattered onto the plate as a heavy, hoarse moan left you with a hand trailing down to touch your own neglected arousal. You bobbed your head up and down on his length, relaxing your jaw as you took in more and more of him, your fingers rubbing your wet slit and circling around your clit to suppress your aching pussy.

“Are you… touching yourself without permission, you slut?” he asked, and you moaned around his dick as the name went straight to your core. “You sure are needy today.”

You bobbed your head faster around his dick as wet sounds filled the apartment, your own high approaching as you continued to rub your clit faster in time with your head, and you used your other hand to stroke what you couldn’t fit in your mouth, tongue pressing against his veins. You hollowed your cheeks and swirled your tongue around his tip when you pulled up. A hand reached down to grab a fistfull of your hair, and you couldn’t hold back a strangled, desperate whimper when he pushed your head down further on his cock. You inserted two fingers inside your entrance and pumped them in and out as he abused your throat, a familiar heat spreading through your lower half that left you moving your fingers faster and faster. His length twitched in your mouth as shallow thrusts moved his cock in and out of your abused throat, and you moaned once more before he released inside your mouth with a strained grunt. The sound of him releasing into you tipped you over the edge, and your body shook, walls clenching around your fingers, as your orgasm reached you and left your eyes rolling back in your head. 

As he emptied his cum in your mouth, you removed your fingers from your convulsing pussy and pulled off his cock with a pop, cum spilling from your lips as it filled you to the brim. More of the thick, white liquid dripped from his cock, and you swallowed the cum to lick the leftovers trailing down his length. The table moved backwards as Wakatoshi pushed it back to look down at you. You looked back up at him with hooded eyes as you licked up his cock with slow movements, relishing in the rumbling groan coming from him. 

Your orgasm quieted down, and all you wanted was Wakatoshi inside you, pounding you into the bed until you were a crying, moaning mess from pleasure overload. He seemed to read your desires, and he grabbed your jaw before you could take him into your mouth again. You stood up, and he pulled you into his lap. Your body shook as you felt his hard length rubbing against your entrance, and he connected your lips in a feverish kiss. Your tongues tangled as you grabbed the hair at his nape and pulled his head back to deepen the kiss. He pulled away and bit his lip as he looked at you with your shiny, red lips and messy hair sticking to your sweaty forehead, and in an instant, the plates clattered to the floor as he slammed you onto the table, chest heaving and eyes filled with lust as he leaned over you, muscles showing through his thin, white shirt as it stuck to his sweaty skin. You wrapped your legs around his waist and pulled him in close to you, and he clenched his jaw. 

“No panties….” He stared at your wet entrance, a finger coming to swipe across your slick opening and leave you shaking. The digit disappeared, and his hands grabbed your ass, kneading it between his fingers as he watched you lick your lips. “Quite bold today, aren’t you?” When you nodded, he delivered a quick slap to your ass, and a debauched moan slipped from your lips as pleasure spread through your body. “Use your words, you whore.”

“Y-yes, master. Just for you.” You moaned again as he massaged your reddened skin. “Please fuck me, master,” you said as you spread your legs for him, and his eyes rolled back. 

You let out an excited giggle as he dipped his face down until his breath fanned over your entrance. Your pussy clenched in anticipation, and he pushed a finger into your opening until it reached his knuckle. A satisfied hum left your mouth at the feeling of his finger in you, and he added another finger. In slow motions, he pushed his fingers in and out of you, stopping a few times to curl his fingers inside you as he swirled his tongue around your clit. Your legs shook when he sucked on your clit, fingers curling in you and brushing against your walls. His fingers disappeared from inside you, but his tongue entered to replace them before you could complain, and you arched you back as he licked around inside you. 

“Fuck, just like that, master. Don’t stop!” you whined, and all at once, he stopped moving and removed his tongue. 

“You’re getting a little demanding there, you little bitch. I don’t think you’re in the position to tell me what to do,” he growled, and you opened your mouth to bite back. Before a single word could leave your mouth, his tip rubbed along your slit and prodded at your entrance. He pushed the head in, and your eyes rolled back as he started to fill you up and your lips rounded into a silent moan as your walls stretched around him. “God, you’re so tight….” he hissed, and you clenched around him.

He pushed into you until he filled you up, and you rubbed at your stomach covered by the maid outfit, softly moaning when you felt the bulge on your stomach where he penetrated you. He bit his lips as you stared up at him with lust filled eyes as you stroked your stomach. A squeal left your lips when he picked you off the table, and you wrapped your arms around his neck as he walked towards the bedroom. Your impatience grew, and you clenched around him, causing him to groan. When he tried to act unfazed, you clenched harder, and a sly smirk appeared on your face as he slammed you against the nearest wall.

“Impatient, huh?” he growled, and you played with the back of his hair as you smiled at him and pulled his head back to plant sloppy kisses on his neck. 

He released a content sigh as you nibbled on around his Adam’s apple, and you squeaked when he started moving in and out of you, your walls contracting and expanding everytime he thrusted at a slow pace. You tried to continue sucking purple splotches on his neck, but as his rhythm sped up, whiny, high-pitched moans slipped from your lips. His hands gripped your ass and squeezed them as he lifted you up and down against the wall onto his cock. Your hands went from his neck to his upper arms, feeling the muscles tighten under the fabric of his shirt with each movement, and you dug your fingernails into him in a silent plea to take this to the bedroom to continue.

He complied, though hesitantly, as he dropped you down onto his cock once more, a drawn out moan leaving you as he penetrated deep inside your walls. Your back left the wall as he walked to the bedroom, and you connected your lips with his, impatient for the taste of his lips against yours. He kicked the door closed behind him as your tongue split his lips and wandered inside his mouth to tangle with his tongue. You let out a hungry whimper when he sucked on your tongue, and he laid you on the bed in response, his dick rubbing against your insides with each movement. 

“You’re going too slow. Hurry up and fuck me, master,” you drawled, hoping to irritate him so he wouldn’t hold back. A muscle in his jaw twitched, and you clenched around him in excitement. 

He slapped your ass, and a drawn out, heavy moan greeted his ears in response, and he bit his lip when you arched your back from the tingling sensation. A hand crept under the skirt and caressed your side, your body melting against the warmth of his hand, and he took the chance to pull himself out until only his tip was inside before snapping his hips and plunging his length inside you. 

“Oh, God! Fuck!” you cursed as you gripped the bed sheets and threw your head back as he continued to slide out and slam back inside you. Your body rocked back and forth on the bed from the strength of his movements, the friction from the clothes creating a satisfying burning sensation along your back. “Don’t… Don’t stop, master!”

At those words, he stopped thrusting inside you. Before you had the chance to whine at him in annoyance, he switched your positions so that you were riding him. You placed your hands on his waist to stabilize yourself as his cock penetrated deeper inside your entrance and made a shaky gasp slip from your lips as he rubbed against your walls more and left a soft burning sensation coursing through your lower half. 

Without having to be told what to do, you lifted yourself up on his dick before dropping your hips back down, moaning as his cock slammed back inside you. Your body shook for a few seconds from the force with which you dropped back onto him, and you looked at Wakatoshi with half lidded eyes. His dick twitched inside you as he stared at you with your flushed face, hair stuck to your forehead as soft pants pushed past your red, swollen lips and your eyes filled with lust. While he planned to let you go at your own pace, seeing how fucked out you were because of him lit something inside of him, and he couldn’t control himself.

His hands gripped your hips as you bounced up and down on his dick in a slow pace to get used to the new position, and he snapped his hips up to meet every time you dropped down. Filthy, drawn-out moans game from you every time he thrusted inside you, and you saw his last shred of patience snap, eyes turning hungry as you clenched around him, and he slammed inside of you as he used his hands to lift you up and down on his cock.

With each thrust, he continued to hit deeper and deeper, and a familiar warm feeling spread throughout your lower half and left you tensing up as you waited for the moment you desperately needed to come. Wakatoshi’s hands dug into your waist as he continued to snap his hips up inside you, and when his movements became more and more sporadic, you knew he was close. 

“I-I’m coming, m-master!” you whined as the warm feeling started to become unbearable, your orgasm right in front of you and waiting for you to tip over the edge. 

“Come,” he rasped, and with one last thrust, you became unraveled in front of him as your high reached you, and you fell over the edge, your head tipping back as your eyes rolled back in your head. 

Your vision turned white as your body shook as pleasure took over you and left you clenching hard around Wakatoshi. He groaned, and his dick grew bigger and twitched inside before he released his cum inside you, the liquid filling you to the brim with warmth. As he pulled out of you, the cum spilled from your entrance as it convulsed, and Wakatoshi licked his lips as he watched your body shake and his cum dribble from you slit onto the bed sheets. 

While you calmed down from your orgasm, he cleaned himself up and changed into his pajamas before he grabbed a washcloth and wiped you down. You let out soft pants as your heart rate returned to normal, and you wiggled around in discomfort, sweat sticking the maid uniform to your hot skin. Without a word, Wakatoshi sat you up and helped you take the uniform off. He busied himself with getting you fresh clothes to change into while you slid the maid outfit off, and when he finished, he picked you up to take you into the bathroom. You swung your legs back and forth as you sat on the toilet, waiting for Wakatoshi to finish filling up the bathtub. Once warm water filled the tub, he lifted you in and washed your hair for you as you waved your hands around in the water. 

“Why don’t you join me?” you asked him, and he shook his head.

“I already bathed,” he said, and you pouted at his answer.

“So? I wanna bathe with you!”

His tongue jabbed the inside of his cheek as he scoffed. “If I bathed with you, you wouldn’t be able to walk for a while.”

Your teeth grabbed your bottom lip as your imagination ran wild with thoughts of what Wakatoshi would do to you, and he shook his head again. “That sounds fine with me. It’s been a while since we last bathed, so just join me. Please, Daddy….” you begged, and you leaned in closer to his face to let your breath fan over his face as you whispered seductively in his ear.

His jaw clenched, and out of the corner of your eye, you saw his dick twitch in his sweatpants. “You better not regret this,” he said.

“I’m on the pill, so I don’t care,” you told him, and he hummed as he stripped out of his clothes. Your mouth watered at the sight of his hard dick and scooted forward in the tub to give him space to sit behind you. When he sat in behind you, you leaned against his chest, humming when you felt his erection rubbing against your ass. He rubbed body wash on your body, and you purred in content as his calloused hands moved along your skin.

“Next time, you should dress up,” you said while his hands worked, and he hummed as he leaned his head down to place kisses on your neck.

“You don’t like me in my suit?”

You sighed in pleasure as he kissed your erogenous zone on your nape. “You do look sexy as hell in it, but I see it almost every day. We should spice things up more.”

“What do you want me to dress up in then?” he asked, a hand caressing your stomach before trailing down to your lips as the other reached up to grope your breast.

He inserted a finger inside you, and you threw your head back against his shoulder. “You’d look sexy in a waiter uniform.”

His thumb swirled around your clit as he added another finger and pumped them in and out of you. “Is that one of your fantasies?”

“Maybe….” You bit your lip as your legs twitched when he hit a certain spot inside you. He twisted one of your nipples in between his pointer finger and thumb, and your back arched 

Ah, you wouldn’t be able to walk for a week after this. But you wouldn’t trade it for anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and with this, knocking on your heart is complete! thank you to all who supported this story! i guess this is where i mention that this was my first x reader ff as well as my first anime ff, my first time writing x reader and non-joking female/male smut🙈🙈🙈 this story has a lot of firsts, so it's very messy. i hope to use this as a stepping stone towards improvement, and i wish for your support as i work to improve and give you great stories. thank you for reading this story! 💜


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